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The University of California, Davis, has experts available to discuss earthquake-related topics. The following researchers can provide assistance in the subject areas listed.

• Earthquakes in Latin America
• Why earthquakes happen
• Earthquake forecasting
• When the ground shifts
• Simulating an earthquake
• Bridges and earthquake safety
• The California connection
• History of earthquakes in Latin America
• Organizations and disaster response

Earthquakes in Latin America

History professor Charles Walker, who is director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas at UC Davis, can speak to South America’s experience with devastating earthquakes. In 2008, Walker published the book “Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath,” which examines the social and political repercussions of a massive earthquake that destroyed Peru’s capital city. In August, while doing research for a book about 20th Century earthquakes in South America, Walker visited Chile and was impressed by the high caliber of that country’s building codes and emergency plans. He is available to do interviews in Spanish or English. Contact: Chuck Walker, History, (530) 752-3046, mcclain@geology.ucdavis.edu

Why organizations won"t plan for disasters

Organizational sociologist Tom Beamish studies how organizations and institutions deal with disasters. Beamish, an associate professor of sociology, can talk about how organizations -- governmental, commercial and social -- respond to human-induced disasters. He says many disasters reflect long-term problems actively ignored or simply not seen by the organizations charged with protecting the public. "These organizations are generally reactive," he says. "Being proactive requires making difficult choices over funding and priorities, choosing among the risks, and overcoming a basic inertia in organizational routines." Beamish wrote "Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis" (2002). Contact: Tom Beamish, Sociology, (530) 754-6897,