EVEN Professor Larson Awarded 2015 Christiaan Huygens Medal
The 2015 Christiaan Huygens Medal is awarded to Kristine M. Larson for her exceptionally innovative work to improve algorithms for high precision GPS data analysis.
Kristine M. Larson has developed exceptionally innovative work with GPS instrumentation in the past decade. GPS is best known in geophysics for its application in measuring small deformations caused by plate motions. In the first decade of Larson’s career she focused on improving algorithms for high precision GPS data analysis and applying this relatively new technique to a variety of tectonic and timing problems. Starting in 2000, her research shifted to developing new geoscience applications for GPS. In 2003 Larson and her colleagues made the first demonstration that GPS could be used to measure seismic waves. This work was followed by several others quantifying the accuracy of the method, incorporating its use in rupture models, and optimally combining it with accelerometer data. The methods she introduced to this field, known as GPS seismology, are now used operationally in both seismic source models and real-time earthquake/tsunami warning systems.
