Well, my name is Solymar Ayala Cortez, and I am getting my PhD under Dr. Aaron Velasco at UTEP.
I am a physicist. I came from Mexico. It's very interesting how I got into geophysics
because I was living on a ranch, I grew up on a ranch taking care of cows with my Grandpa.
And I always like to be outside. I was a Boy Scout and then I, it was just like,
the mix between being outside and liking physics. Right now, I have like one project that I am
focusing in. It's to analyze the vulnerabilities of the City of El Paso in case of an earthquake.
I requested permission to the Diocese of El Paso to deploy like 58 seismometers along the city and
I've been doing this mostly by myself because of COVID, so I've been doing a lot of field work. And
yeah like it's, I don't know like, but I have done other projects and that one is about
developing a seismic risk map of a small town in Mexico after they they want the big earthquake.
In 2017, a small team from the university, we went to Mexico and
we wanted to follow the aftershocks, but I saw some of the problems in in that town because it
was, I mean, it is one of the most, poorest towns in Mexico. I saw people living on the streets,
kids without water, like no hospitals, no schools. It was very difficult. And I decided to create a
risk map to identify the high and low frequency zones within the town for like risk management,
in case of like, they decided to put the things that people need in that area,
they would have a starting point. And I also have another project
related to scattering. This is very interesting actually.
I try to develop it from other approaches because I am a physicist and I was working in Mexico City
in the Mexican Petroleum Institute. And I was working in material sciences. I wanted to get like
the brain material sciences because my mentor and friend,
he does that. And I decided to take advantage of that and develop a methodology
to analyze discontinuities underground using seismic scattering, the changes
of the wave field, and do something called the scattering profiles, which contains
the geometrical information of the system and size, volume, density contrast.
I'm still working on on the last part because I want to publish it before I graduate.
Well, I did physics as my Bachelor's degree in Mexico City, and after that I didn't go into my
Master's degree right away. I was working for a professor. I had worked for different professors,
but one changed my life, you could say that. And that's very important because I, I admire him. I
saw what he was doing. He took me under his wings literally, and he was helping me, he was like
telling me, hey you can do this, you should do this, like I don't know. He showed me a different,
a different world because, as I told you, I was from like a small ranch and just decided
to go into physics because I was good at it, and all my professors encouraged me to do it,
but until I met that professor, he took me to different conferences, he took me to field trips,
like we spent a lot of time together, like only like doing research. And like,
he liked the way that I thought because he's like, he was like, oh you think like very
different. And I am very optimistic. So he, he was like, oh yeah,
you have to do something different. So I was working for him, and later on, I wanted to get a
Master's degree in England. I applied to England, but my English wasn't that good at the time,
and UTEP like, was right across the border right. And that professor met a guy who was at UTEP,
he was a professor there. And he told me like, you should go with him and take a
class over there and then you apply and you go to England. But then I met Dr. Velasco here and,
like he kind of like, like also again changed my world, you know, and allowed me to, to grow, and
show me more opportunities. And he told me, you're gonna get your Master's degree in England, okay?
I'm offering you to get your PhD right away. You will avoid the administration processes,
but you will have to work like a lot. You will have to do research with me and you will
have to earn your Master's degree, I guess, and your PhD kind of at the same time. And
I didn't know that I could do that. And, and he showed me that and that's what I've been doing.
That's how I end up in geophysics and that's how I end up in in like in this place, you know.
Oh yeah, definitely yeah. How can I say it? Let me think about it. Public awareness,
I would say like that, public awareness is very important because most of the people
they don't know, like the risk of having an earthquake sometimes
because you live in places of low probability, but high impact. The people, they just don't know that
an earthquake could happen and the implications. And they are not prepared. So, for example,
it was on Saturday, yeah. We have something called the Celebration of our Mountains.
It's a field trip that you go like every Saturday. Well, I went to one of those and,
and then, we were discussing, oh what do you do? and the background. And I was telling
them about my project, so I was showing the community, and they like the things that I was
doing. And they invited me to organize one of those. So I organized one of the field trips.
And we went to like, one of the stations where I have a seismometer recording a broadband.
I dig a hole, I showed them like step-by-step procedure to deploy one seismometer. And they
were very excited and some of, some of them, they were like, wow, we didn't even know that this
this was a thing. And it's very interesting like how you're gonna transfer what you know
to the people and so you can make them aware of what is going on under, under them literally.
So that's what I've been doing, yeah. Oh yes, get involved. That's a very
important thing, but I like, I don't know. I have encountered a couple of things and
more than this to them will be for the professors, and for people, like
share, like share. Like the things that you do like because sometimes it's very difficult to
to get a hold on people. And students want to do things they are like, willing to do like,
but sometimes we just close the doors for them. And that's, that's what I would say.