From the Archives: Shaking up stereotypes: Caltech ‘Earthquake Ladies’ give science a human face

This is probably the only place on Earth where residents actually know the names of their favorite seismologists.

Every time the ground rumbles and shakes, Southern Californians soon find the familiar faces of Dr. Kate Hutton and Dr. Lucile Jones on their TV screens. “The seismo heads,” as one local journalist affectionately dubbed them. “The earthquake ladies,” as they are known to fans who point and wave at them on the street as if they were Goldie Hawn.

In truth, these two are dirt and rock junkies, who revel in studying fissures, eruptions, displacements and seismotectonics and analyzing what it all means via sophisticated computers and mathematical equations.

But in the last five years, Jones and Hutton, more than any other scientists at Caltech’s seismological lab in Pasadena, have emerged as TV celebrities.

Dr. Lucile M. (Lucy) Jones laughs at her celebrity, insisting that it’s just “that I have a big mouth” or “maybe they like my blond hair.”

Though Jones, 37, who has a Ph.D. from MIT, has been popping up on TV in the aftermath of temblors since 1986, her most memorable appearances have come in recent months.

It was about 10 p.m. on April 22, following the magnitude 6.1 quake in Desert Hot Springs, that she was interviewed while cradling Sven, her 5-year-old son, on her right hip. And early on Sunday morning, after the 7.4 quake in Landers, Jones was again seen on TV holding a child--her other son, 21-month-old Niels.

The children came along because Jones’ husband, Dr. Egill Hauksson, also is a seismologist at Caltech. When they can’t find a baby-sitter, they bring the kids and trade off watching them while analyzing data and talking to the press.

Jones, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said that after she appeared on TV with her son last April, she received at least a dozen letters from women thanking her for representing such a positive example of the working mother.

“And the other image I project, I think, is scientist as human being,” Jones said. “The fact is the American population doesn’t trust scientists. The image of a scientist in America is from ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ and there I am being a normal human being, coping with kids and I can still be a scientist. And you don’t have to obfuscate and confuse (with big scientific terms).”

Jones, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese language and literature, also was the first American scientist to work in China after normalization of relations with the United States in 1979.

Hutton, who is in her mid-40s, has been at Caltech since 1977 and oversees data processing for the Southern California Seismographic Network. She is the first person responsible for getting to the office after a quake, reading the data and disseminating it to the media. Her short gray hair, round glasses and calm delivery of location and magnitude is often the first image of the disaster trembly TV viewers encounter minutes after any big quake.

Both Hutton and Jones said that while they share common fears during an earthquake, the shaking of the ground is thrilling for them. Last Sunday, Hutton was being interviewed live when the second big shaker hit, and while members of the media surveyed the room for a safe haven, Hutton grabbed the wall so that she could better experience and understand the quake.

The most frustrating part of having to deal with the media barrage following a quake, both seismologists agreed, is that it keeps them away from their work.

“At this point, I would like to look at the data,” said Hutton, who earned her Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Maryland in 1976 but switched to seismology because there were so few jobs in her chosen field. “I would like to be out in the field. That is the disappointing side to it.”

Sometimes, too, they said, the crush of reporters that surround them in the wake of a big quake can be a bit overwhelming, especially when TV reporters with live cameras aimed at them demand information they just don’t have. The very moment the room stopped shaking, for example, Hutton was besieged by questions about whether Sunday’s second temblor was an aftershock or in fact the Big One.

Jones said it is in those first few minutes after a quake when impatient radio and TV stations have on occasion put out false and potentially inflammatory rumors gleaned from a quick survey of opinions from their listeners and viewers. “Once a little aftershock became a 6.1 quake in Baldwin Park,” said Jones, who added that KFWB-AM has installed a hot line open only to Caltech scientists so that the station can obtain accurate data more quickly.

Hutton said that over the years, the media along with the general public, have become better educated about earthquakes. And the once prevalent “stupid questions” such as “So when are we going to fall into the ocean?” are now rare. And even though Hutton and Jones said that they grow weary fending off reporters who constantly press them for precise predictions about when the next big quake will occur, both seismologists added that on the whole they relish their time in the limelight.

“It really seems to be a lot of help,” said Jones, who specializes in assessing the probability of additional quakes. “Part of the reason I’m a seismologist is I didn’t want to build bombs as a physicist. This seemed like a much more socially useful occupation. I go on television because I hope the information I can provide is useful for the community, and I’m very happy to do that.”