Organizing the Association of Pacific Rim Universities MultiHazards Initiative

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This morning I got up at 5:00 am to drive down to San Francisco to catch a flight to Tokyo on my way to Sendai, Japan.  The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), an organization of the 42 leading universities around the Pacific Rim, are meeting next week in Tokyo to, in part, approve the plan to move ahead with the APRU MultiHazards Initiative.  To be headquartered at Tohoku University, the idea is to bring together the leading minds around the Pacific Rim to partner in the solution of problems relating to great disasters such as the March 11, 2011 M9.1 Tohoku earthquake.

As part of the plan, a variety of organizations will partner with the APRU and the initiative "hub", which will be located at the IRIDeS disasters institute at Tohoku University.  I will be meeting with APRU Secretary General Dr. Chris Tremewan, APRU Initiatives Director Jay Piggot, and Tohoku University Exectutive Vice President Ueki to participate in the initial organization.  We will then travel down to Tokyo to attend the APRU Senior Staff meeting to discuss the results.  I have also been asked to meet with USAID staffers at the US Embassy in Tokyo to brief them on this important initiative.

As a part of the MH initiative, a variety of partners from many different areas of science and society are being solicited.  These include the NASA sponsored QuakeSim and E-Decider projects, the APEC Cooperation for Earthquake Simulations (ACES) project of which I am Executive Director, and OpenHazards.

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