image: Peter Shearer
Credit: Courtesy of Peter Shearer
The Seismological Society of America will present its highest honor, the 2026 Harry Fielding Reid Medal, to Peter Shearer, professor of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.
Shearer, who will receive the medal at the 2026 SSA Annual Meeting, is recognized as one of the leading observational seismologists of his generation, noted for his outstanding contributions to improving earthquake locations and other source properties and his research delineating the structure and dynamics of Earth’s mantle and core.
“Taken together, Professor Shearer’s research portfolio demonstrates both depth and breadth: transforming our understanding of earthquakes, advancing the study of Earth’s deep structure, and expanding the frontiers of seismological inquiry,” said Harvard University seismologist Miaki Ishii, who nominated Shearer for the Medal.
Shearer is perhaps best known for his efforts to develop methods of precisely determining earthquake locations, which have led to further insights into fault interactions, seismic stress release, and the physics behind earthquakes. He and his colleagues were some of the first to systematically reprocess whole earthquake catalogs to improve locations. Shearer’s relocated earthquake catalogs and focal mechanisms for southern California have become standards used across hundreds of studies.
Shearer pioneered the use of back-projection with data from large arrays of seismic stations to image detailed earthquake rupture propagation, which he along with Ishii and others used to better understand the magnitude 9+ Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami in 2004.
His work “stacking” thousands of seismograms from events around the globe to study the deeper layers of the Earth have confirmed significant mantle discontinuities, and his mining and analysis of large data sets have revealed small-scale heterogeneities in the mantle and core. These studies have helped to bridge seismology with geodynamics and mineral physics research in the quest for a clearer picture of Earth’s dynamics and long-term evolution.
In their commendations for the Medal, Shearer’s colleagues noted his enthusiasm and generosity as a mentor for students and early-career researchers. Many of his graduate and postdoctoral scholars have gone on to distinguished research careers, and his excellence in teaching was recognized by UCSD with the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in 2003.
Shearer has more than 230 peer-reviewed publications, and his textbook Introduction to Seismology, now in its third edition, has been cited more than 1000 times.
He served as SSA president from 2018 to 2019 and SSA Board Member from 2015 to 2020, along with service on numerous SSA committees. During his time as president, Shearer initiated the Society’s fall topical meeting and the Honors Encouragement and the Ethics Committees.
Shearer published his first professional paper in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America and he gave his first professional talk at the 1981 SSA Annual Meeting in Berkeley, California. “I was incredibly nervous,” he recalled in a 2018 interview with SSA, “but it was a very supportive community, and I felt like I was at home there. I’m personally very fond of SSA, and I like that its members have a say in how it is run.”
Shearer was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 1999, presented AGU’s Gutenberg Lecture in 2005, and received its Inge Lehmann Medal in 2020. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2009.
He received his bachelor’s degree in geology and geophysics in 1978 from Yale University and his Ph.D. in geophysics from UCSD in 1986.
First awarded in 1975, the Medal recognizes outstanding contributions in seismology and earthquake engineering. Harry Fielding Reid, a pioneering American seismologist, who proposed in 1911 the elastic-rebound theory for earthquake occurrence.
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The call for nominations for next year's Medal, along with a list of past winners, is available at the Seismological Society of America's website.
The Seismological Society of America is a scientific society devoted to the advancement of earthquake science. Founded in 1906 in San Francisco, the Society now has members throughout the world representing a variety of technical interests: seismologists and other geophysicists, geologists, engineers, insurers and policymakers in preparedness and safety.