I work in the application of

seismology usually to the earth.

I look at problems of how you extract information from complex datasets.

In seismology we create a lot of complex datasets,

usually by measuring the vibrations of the earth from

earthquakes and other natural sources or artificial sources

and the game I'm using playing is how you can

use that information to tell you something about

the earth itself or the nature of the source, i.e. an earthquake.

The most difficult problems in my field are thought to be

unsolvable. How do we really take these complex datasets and use

everything in the dataset to describe the earth or constrain the earth?

We use the information to understand

physical processes in the earth i.e. the motion of the plates

and the structure. My personal little buzz

is about really finding a

beautiful new method to do something with data that you couldn't do before,

ask questions you couldn't ask before. So I find

tools though analyzing data to be

exciting and powerful things

in some respects it's the opposite to what most scientists do they often have

a problem and look for a tool.

I also do that but I'm also excited by tools that then

need to find applications. Because I'm interested in

data science an inference, that brings me the contact with statisticians,

mathematicians,

physicists of course and increasingly, computer scientists and engineers.

My secret has always been to talk to people from a wide variety of backgrounds,

So we look at similar problems and they

bring fresh ideas and I think that's probably one of the

more distinguishing things about my career.