image: Ruth Harris
Credit: Courtesy of Ruth Harris
For her decades of thoughtful Society leadership and energetic committee participation, the Seismological Society of America will present Ruth Harris with its 2026 Distinguished Service Award. Harris will receive the award at the 2026 SSA Annual Meeting.
Harris, a senior research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, joined SSA in 1987. She was first elected as an SSA Board Member from 1997 to 2003. She served as SSA Vice President from 2005-2007, and twice as SSA President, from 2015-2016 and from 2023-2024.
In their nomination of Harris for the award, former SSA President (2017-2018) and 2011 Distinguished Service recipient Andrew J. Michael and former SSA President (2022-2023) Peggy Hellweg described Harris as “an all-around thoughtful leader.”
Among her accomplishments in SSA leadership, Michael and Hellweg singled out Harris’ drive to create the SSA Annual Meeting’s Student Presentation Awards Program, for which she remains a regular reviewer. They also noted Harris’ support for the development of open access options for the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) and Seismological Research Letters (SRL), and her invaluable institutional knowledge during the 2015 transition to a new executive director for the society.
Nearly every SSA committee has benefited from Harris’ active participation, including the Management Committee, the Publications Committee, the Board of Director's Nominations Committee, the Officer Nominations Committee, the Investment Committee, the Executive Committee, the Student Awards Committee, the Membership Committee, the Frank Press Public Service Award Committee, the COSMOS/EERI/SSA Bolt Medal Committee and the 2001 Annual Meeting Committee.
Harris also served as guest editor on the BSSA Special Issue on the 2004 Parkfield Earthquake & Prediction Experiment, and has been an associate editor of The Seismic Record since 2021.
In a 2023 interview, Harris called the society her professional home.
“SSA is just the right size, it is not too small and not too big. This allows us to easily communicate in our seismology communities, to make a difference and to get things done,” she said. “The SSA Executive Director and staff are excellent, our journal editors are dedicated, and we have many, many enthusiastic and thoughtful members.”
The Distinguished Service to SSA Award honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the work of the Seismological Society of America. This award is presented at the annual meeting during the year of the award.
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The call for nominations for next year's Distinguished Service award, 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.