Brian Shiro

Geophysicist, NOAA

I currently work as a Geophysicist at NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. There, my duties include responding to earthquake and tsunami alerts on a 24/7 basis and issuing tsunami messages as needed. I also serve as the center's webmaster and main developer of new XML-based message dissemination methods including RSS, KML, and CAP. I also help coordinate an effort to expand and upgrade Hawaii's seismic network to improve tsunami warning, in concert with the USGS earthquake and volcanoe monitoring missions. Previously, I have extensive field work experience installing and maintaining broadband seismograph stations in the US, Canada, Fiji, Tonga, Antarctica, and Northern Mariana Islands. I have also participated in the Juneau Icefield Research expedition in Alaska/Canada and have considerable glacier/mountaineering experience. My main research focus in graduate school was studying the outer rise seismicity of the Tonga subduction zone. I also did geodynamical modeling of the seismic effects from large asteroid impacts into planets in an attempt to explain antipodal focusing of seismic energy during such events. I have a strong interest in extraterrestrial seismology and hope to someday be an architect of a lunar or Martian seismic network. In fact, a major lifelong ambition of mine has been to become an astronaut. I'm Brian White or Brian Shiro, depending on whether you knew me prior to 2003 or not. When I got married in 2003 I changed my name to "Shiro", which is the Japanese word for "white." My wife is half Japanese, and we thought this was good way to combine our heritages.