Santa Fe Institute

Bio

John is Distinguished Professor of Physics and Geology at the University of California, Davis. He is also Executive Director of the APEC Cooperation for Earthquake Simulation (ACES), a consortium of 6 APEC economies whose goal is to understand the entire earthquake cycle by means of rigorous models and numerical simulations. For over thirty years, his research has focused on using statistical physics to understand the physics of earthquakes and other driven threshold systems. He has a particular interest in the development of methods for earthquake forecasting based on studies of chaos and complexity in driven nonlinear systems, as well as on the use of realistic, large scale numerical simulations. More recently, he has developed an interest in viewing crashes in economic and financial systems as a kind of “Econoquake” that might be understood by analogy to earthquakes and other first order (nucleation) phase transitions. Braving the unthinkable, he has also dipped his toes into the real world, and co-founded a startup company in the area of earthquake forecasting, general hazard analysis, and risk management for the global public.

John has served the scientific community through membership on numerous boards and committees, including serving as a Member (1990 - 1997) and Chair (1994-1996) of the scientific Advisory Council to the Southern California Earthquake Center. He is a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (1995-present). He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society (2005) and the American Geophysical Union (2008). John received his B.S.E from Princeton University (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi), and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. It was recently announced that the QuakeSim.org team, of which Rundle is a founding member, was co-winner of the 2012 NASA Software of the Year award (2012).