|Dr. Elizabeth Cochran, a geophysicist with USGS, conducts
seismic research along the San Andreas Fault in California.| Dr.
Elizabeth Cochran, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological
Survey, was named one of President Obama’s recipients of the
Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers,
the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on
science and engineering professionals in the early stages of
their independent research careers. Cochran, who came to work
for the USGS in June after a career as an assistant professor at
the University of California, Riverside, is an accomplished
seismologist. She has made important contributions to the
understanding of earthquake physics and earthquake triggering,
the physical properties and geometry of earthquake fault zones
and their evolution after earthquakes, and to the development of
a new method of earthquake monitoring using low-cost earthquake
sensors, called the Quake-Catcher Network (QCN). This network
allows scientists to monitor ear