This opening session kicks off the annual meeting with an update from the Director on the Center’s recent milestones and upcoming priorities. The External Advisory Council will offer perspectives on navigating the changed landscape, followed by highlights from SCEC teams on outreach, education, and community engagement initiatives. The science leadership will then present recent achievements, including updates on the SCEC Community Earth Models—setting the stage for deeper exploration in subsequent discussions and poster sessions.

Advances in tools like DAS, fiber-optic geodesy, continuous waveform analysis, and AI are transforming earthquake forecasting and hazard assessment. This session surveys how we can leverage continuous data for nowcasting, forecasting, or precursor identification—from lab experiments to field-scale applications—and explores new frontiers in real-time monitoring and predictability science.

In an era where social media influencers, AI-generated news, and misinformation often outpace traditional science communication, how do we effectively convey earthquake hazard and risk to promote community resilience? This session explores innovative strategies for engaging diverse audiences through emerging platforms, navigating misinformation, and rethinking the role of trusted voices in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

The growing intersection of computational power, big data, machine learning, and geoscience is transforming how we understand and model earthquake processes. This session explores cutting-edge computational approaches—such as digital twins for fault systems, AI applications, and novel data integration methods—that are advancing earthquake science toward more comprehensive predictive capabilities.

This session explores how material properties and fault rheology influence earthquake nucleation, rupture propagation, and seismic hazard. Drawing on experimental rock mechanics, in-situ and remote observations, and numerical modeling, we will address topics such as strain localization, inelastic off-fault deformation, pore pressure evolution, and the roles of damage and healing in earthquake cycles, and how they affect earthquakes and faulting across scales.