In the world of earthquake monitoring, where every second counts and every detail matters, Samantha Wiser, our Program Coordinator, ensures the Alaska Earthquake Center stays on track, working behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly. 

Journey to Alaska Earthquake Center

As a child, Samantha survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992, one of the most destructive hurricanes to ever hit the southeastern United States. “Enduring such a traumatic event at such a young age changed the trajectory of my life,” says Wiser. “Throughout grade school, I tracked hurricanes at home and paid attention to how the National Hurricane Center issues forecasts.” By the time she graduated from high school, she focused on Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and carried that passion into college, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology from the Florida Institute of Technology. 

While she was pursuing her degree, Samantha took multiple work/study jobs—one with Admissions and another with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). She gave campus tours and stuffed envelopes before working upwards towards coordinating event logistics and conducting finger-printing.  After graduating, she traveled around the country as a military spouse, eventually landing in Fairbanks where her relationship with University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) began. 

Samantha started at UAF as the Office Manager for the EarthScope National Office, which facilitated education and outreach efforts. When the original EarthScope project finished in 2019, Samantha joined the Alaska Earthquake Center by becoming the Executive Assistant. 

Samantha is the backbone of the Earthquake Center. When I asked her what tasks she carries out, she playfully replied, “what don’t I do?” She expertly oversees our grants, managing everything from the proposal phase to post-award obligations, and plays a key role in making sure we are hitting every benchmark. Additionally, she handles our land-use permits, ensuring we have the necessary approvals to place equipment on land owned or managed by stakeholders and provides detailed reports to keep them up to date on performed fieldwork and seismic activity in their areas. 

It would be impossible to list all the behind-the-scenes action that keeps the organization running, but here are a few others that Samantha is responsible for: producing and updating our incident response procedures (which guide us during emergencies), coordinating travel logistics, and assisting with field logistics like helicopter charters and expense tracking. Beyond these tasks, she finds the capacity to “sprinkle in” some field work. Her favorite outing was in McCarthy, back in 2021, to help perform annual maintenance and decommission an older site. “McCarthy is such a cool little town to visit and it was my first time in a helicopter!” 

“My favorite part of the job is that it’s different every day; I could be doing grant closeouts one day and assisting with travel plans the next,” Samantha says with a smile. After nearly six years with the Alaska Earthquake Center, she continues to seamlessly transition between tasks—from complex operational duties to participating in fieldwork—to make sure that the organization keeps reaching its full potential.