New Staff: Mary Templeton, IRIS/PASSCAL

by George Zamora

SOCORRO, N.M., Nov. 10, 1998 -- Mary Templeton recently was appointed as a staff scientist at the newest research center on the New Mexico Tech campus--the IRIS/PASSCAL seismological instrumentation center.

Templeton assumes her new position after having worked in academia as an assistant professor of geophysics at California State University at Fullerton.

She earned her bachelor of arts degree in geology at San Francisco State University, her master of arts degree in geophysics from the University of California at Berkeley, and her doctoral degree in geophysics from the University of Wyoming.

Templeton relates that she started out pursuing a music degree at San Francisco State where her understanding of geophysics began while noting some arcane similarities between
the two fields in her lab studies: "It dawned on me how the oscilloscope waves of synthesized music and seismic waves work essentially the same way--that picture has always stayed with
me," she says.

Earlier this year, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) selected New Mexico Tech as the permanent site for its Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental
Lithosphere (PASSCAL) Instrument Center, which replaced two related earthquake research facilities, one at Stanford University and one at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of
Columbia University in New York.

"One thing that I really like about my new job is that in addition to teaching people how to use seismic instrumentation, I also get to work with a lot of new software, which is something I
particularly enjoy doing," Templeton says. "I'll also be spending a lot of time out in the field with my work, and I also enjoy that type of work. . . . So, I'm fortunate to have a job which I really enjoy doing."

IRIS/PASSCAL's projected staff of 13 to 15 employees will largely be involved with developing new seismological instrumentation and associated computer software and hardware; providing logistical and technical support for seismic field experiments; and maintaining a pool of over 1,000 seismographs, which routinely will be lent out to scientists conducting earthquake and other seismological research throughout the world.

Templeton relates that she currently is busy "setting up the computer environment" at the new IRIS/PASSCAL building, "networking and assigning tasks to different machines."

Once things settle down, one of Templeton's duties will be to train scientists to use the IRIS/PASSCAL equipment and software and also to go out in the field to ensure everything is
set up and running properly.

"I appreciate the whole concept of operating IRIS/PASSCAL as a service center," Templeton notes. "It fits well with my personality and past experience."

Templeton is a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Seismological Society of America, and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, an organization in which she served as vice president of her local chapter.

Outside of work, Templeton says she enjoys reading, cooking, gardening, playing volleyball, mountain biking, camping, cross-country skiing, and traveling.

"I have also really been enjoying the remarkable sense of space that I've discovered in this part of the country out here," she adds, "especially after coming from Southern California."