ICDS associate director aims to enhance collaboration in new role

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, whose mission is to “foster a collaborative, interdisciplinary scholarly community,” is working to continue that vision through the work of their leadership, including new Associate Director Christelle Wauthier, who is also an associate professor of geosciences. 

In this role, Wauthier, who started at Penn State as an ICDS co-hire and assistant professor of geosciences in 2014, said she hopes to “promote more discussion and synergy between co-hires, especially at the junior level.” 

“We have about 10 new assistant professors who are co-hires,” Wauthier said. “When you start, you sometimes have concerns or questions, and you don’t know how you want to raise them because you’re new. I’d like to get in touch and have discussions and get to know each other.” 

Wauthier said that, since the start of her career at Penn State, “ICDS has always been super helpful and supportive.” 

“I have always been in touch with them,” Wauthier said. “I have participated in ICDS events, reviewed grants, and attended co-hire retreats and other events. I always have been involved in the life of the institute, so when Dr. Guido Cervone asked me if I wanted to be an associate director, I said, ‘well, that could be a great opportunity to foster interdisciplinary research.’” 

Wauthier started the associate director position on April 1. 

“ICDS grew so much from when I started. Now, it’s at 35-plus co-hires,” Wauthier said. “I want to try and lead with the co-hires, get some discussions going and have social events. Sometimes when you talk with people, you can come up with ideas for projects and that may help with interdisciplinary research projects, as well as communication, so we can help each other and get to know each other better.” 

She said she also hopes to help with strengthening broader impacts of projects that are seeking grant funding. 

“For U.S. National Science Foundation grants, you have to come up with a pretty strong broader impacts section,” Wauthier said. “You have research and then you have broader impacts, which are things [the research] would do for the community, the students, the public, outreach. The Center for Immersive Experiences of ICDS could be very helpful to design strong broader impacts... it could make a big difference and we could get more grants funded.” 

Wauthier knows a thing or two about grant-funded research. She studies active volcanoes using radar satellite images mapping subsurface processes that cause deformation — including magma movement, landslides and faulting. 

“I use radar satellite images to process ground deformation maps and can image the deformation of about one centimeter accuracy,” Wauthier said. “It’s really, really precise. It’s a map for a specific area for a specific time-period and you can look at how the area is evolving in respect to the deformation.” 

Wauthier studies these unstable volcanoes, tracking parts of the edifice that is sliding. 

“I study these types of processes, like the interactions between the magma pushing through the rocks and how it helps part of the edifice slides,” Wauthier said. “It could be sudden and catastrophic or it could be a slow landslide like a few millimeters to centimeters [of landslide movement] per year. Unless there is a GPS mapping of the site or ground-based GPS, you may easily miss it because it’s subtle movement.” 

According to Wauthier’s research, the “magma push” is helping the landslide process and understanding the interaction between the magma and the landslide mechanism could aid in preventing devastation. 

“It’s important [to know],” Wauthier said. “If it slides super fast, there are bigger eruptions, landslides, destruction, death... and if it is a coastal volcano, a tsunami. We saw that in 2018 in Indonesia with Anak Krakatau. These things are lethal and have potential for big economic and infrastructure loss of life. It’s important to understand them better.” 

Wauthier has worked with other Penn State ICDS leadership and co-hires on this computationally heavy work, including Cervone, ICDS director and professor of geography and meteorology; Steven Greybush, associate professor of meteorology; and Melissa Gervais, assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science.

Specifically, Wauthier, Cervone and Greybush are currently working to get grant funding for their research using computational deep learning and machine learning approaches to view the subtle shifts in ground deformation and characterize deformation and atmospheric signals better.  

“I’m trying to get an interdisciplinary collaboration going with them, and that could not have happened if I wasn’t a co-hire,” Wauthier said. “These things are cool because you get to talk to people you may not have before and get to work on interdisciplinary research. Then, maybe you can mentor a student or post-doc... the student is going to have many more skills by work with other people instead of just one adviser or professor.” 

Wauthier also has traveled across the globe to collaborate with locals on ground-based data and helped with training. She has studied volcanoes in Hawaii, Indonesia, Guatemala, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. 

“I try to visit the places and collaborate to get some ground-based data that is hard to get,” Wauthier said. “Many places outside of the U.S. don’t have open data. Here, you can connect to a website, download data and it’s open and free and it’s great.” 

Many of the countries Wauthier has been to maintain their ground-based data at the observatory level due to lack of resources, infrastructure and internet, Wauthier said. 

Throughout her research, she has maintained international collaboration by sharing data and using her satellite deformation maps across the world. 

Getting an in-person perspective though, is more than just data and mapping — it’s an experience, she said. 

“It’s important to validate the observations and get a sense of what you’re looking at from a different perspective,” Wauthier said. “Seeing a place from the ground, the scale of the area you’re looking at compared to a satellite from above... it’s so different. Sometimes you see something on your image, and you have to go there and see what’s on the ground to validate your interpretations.”