Doctoral Dissertation Research: Seismic Politics: The Scientific Development of an Early Alert System Infrastructure in Mexico

加州大学欧文分校（University of California at Irvine）的博士生伊丽莎白·雷迪（Elizabeth Reddy）将在威廉·m·毛雷尔（William M. Maurer）博士的指导下，在墨西哥城进行科学与公共安全之间关系的研究。墨西哥城经常发生强烈地震，因此建立了一个创新的地震预警系统。警报系统（SAS）由一套协调的传感设备和无线电发射器组成。这些设备与医院、学校、媒体机构，有时甚至是私人住宅的警报机器相连。从1991年开始，当SAS传感设备记录到重大的地球运动时，它们会自动向墨西哥城的警报机器发送信号，然后发出响亮的警报，有时会在地震到达该市前60秒发出警报。这种根据地震和无线电波移动的相对速度发出的警告，为人们提供了一个躲避的宝贵机会。然而，感觉网络及其警报系统的范围受到严重限制。由于SAS只能对某些特定的地震发出警报，它一直受到大量科学和公众辩论的影响。在开发、维护和倡导SAS的过程中，工程师和科学家必须调动有关社会世界的想法以及他们的技术专长。本研究旨在探讨这些团体如何应对他们的专业知识和公共安全要求的严格和可能相互冲突的要求：特别是他们如何参与与风险相关的概念，他们如何特别考虑墨西哥的社会和技术因素，以及制度要求和政策要求如何影响他们的工作。当他们将前沿的地球物理和工程知识与公共风险管理结合在一起时，他们所承担的工作被他们自己描述为极端的挑战。为了收集调查所需的数据，研究者利用了档案资源、参与观察、调查、社会网络分析、访谈和口述历史。她的发现将涉及墨西哥地震风险的社会政治生产，并对正在进行的公共领域科学研究产生影响。

University of California at Irvine doctoral student, Elizabeth Reddy, supervised by Dr. William M. Maurer, will undertake research in Mexico City on the relationship between science and public safety. Mexico City, subject to frequent and powerful earthquakes, is host to an innovative earthquake early alert system. The Sistema Alerta Sismica (SAS) is comprised of a coordinated set of sensory devices and radio transmitters. These are connected to alert machines in hospitals, schools, media outlets, and sometimes even private homes. Beginning in 1991, when SAS sensory devices register significant earth motion, they automatically send signals to alert machines in Mexico City that, in turn, issue a loud warning, sometimes up to sixty seconds before an earthquake reaches the city. This warning, which depends on the relative speeds at which earthquakes and radio waves move, provides a valuable opportunity for people to take shelter. However, the sensory network and its alert system are severely limited in scope. Because the SAS can only provide alerts for certain earthquakes, it has been subject to a great deal of scientific and public debate. In the process of developing the SAS, maintaining it, and advocating for it, engineers and scientists must mobilize ideas about the social world as well as their technical expertise. This research is designed to explore how these groups navigate the rigorous and possibly conflicting demands of their expertise and imperatives of public safety: particularly how they engage with concepts relating to risk, how they account for particularly Mexican social and technical factors, and ways that institutional imperatives and policy mandates affect their work. As they knit together cutting-edge geophysical and engineering knowledge with public risk management, they undertake work that they themselves describe as challenging in the extreme. To gather the data necessary for this investigation, the researcher utilizes archival resources, participant observation, surveys, social network analysis, interviews, and oral histories. Her findings will speak to production of social politics of seismic risk in Mexico, and has implications for ongoing research on science in the public sphere.