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Katherine (Kate) Scharer

Dr. Scharer holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon and a B.S. in Geological Sciences from the University of Washington.

Prior to coming to the USGS, she was a professor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.  Dr. Scharer studies the timing and size of pre-historic earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault and other active faults in southern California, Alaska, and the Dominican Republic. She also investigates the deformation produced by tectonic motion through a combination of field mapping, lidar analysis, and Quaternary geochronologic methods.