Jannes Münchmeyer has been awarded the Adlershof Dissertation Prize for his doctoral thesis on the topic of earthquake early warning. The prize, endowed with 3,000 euros, was awarded for the 21st time on 14 February 2023 – after a presentation competition. It is awarded jointly by the research network IGAFA e. V. , the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin andWISTA Management GmbH.
 

Jannes Münchmeyer and his research on early earthquake warning

From the award announcement Adlershof:

“Earthquake early warning is an essential step to avoid major damage: between the onset of an earthquake and the occurrence of strong shaking, there are often valuable seconds to take protective measures. But how early are warnings possible and where do physics and the natural stochasticity of earthquakes set limits for us? Dr. Jannes Münchmeyer showed how artificial intelligence can help answer these questions and what impact his findings can have on the management of earthquake risks."

As part of his research on earthquake detection and real-time assessment using machine learning methods, Jannes Münchmeyer developed deep-learning methods for earthquake early warning and real-time estimation of earthquake magnitude and location. Furthermore, he proposed and applied a probabilistic framework for studying the predictability of the course of earthquake eruptions to show that earthquake eruptions cannot be accurately assessed during their initial growth phase.

Jannes Münchmeyer's doctoral thesis is entitled “Machine learning for fast and accurate assessment of earthquake source parameters”. It was written as part of the HEIBRiDS Graduate School (“Helmholtz Einstein International Berlin Research School in Data Science”), which was initiated by the Helmholtz Association and the Einstein Centre for the Digital Future. The work was supervised by Prof. Frederik Tilmann at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam and Prof. Ulf Leser at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Münchmeyer has been a PostDoc at the Université Grenoble Alpes (France) since September 2023.

The Adlershof Dissertation Award

The Adlershof Dissertation Award recognises young researchers for outstanding scientific achievements in their doctoral thesis, which they have carried out - at least in part - at a research institution in the Berlin Adlershof Technology Park.

The special feature: Three researchers will be nominated for the award ceremony. In front of an audience, they present the topic of their work in short, generally understandable lectures. Then they are evaluated. Both the research and the presentation performance count. For their nomination, the participants receive a prize of 1,000 euros, the best performance in the dissertation prize is rewarded with 3,000 euros.

With material from EGU and WISTA.

Original publication:

Münchmeyer, J.(2022): Machine learning for fast and accurate assessment of earthquake source parameters, PhD Thesis, Berlin : Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 231 p.
https://doi.org/10.18452/25174