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OTTAWA, September 8, 2010  —  Every four years, the International Tsunami Society, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, presents awards for outstanding contributions to tsunami research. This year, Ioan Nistor and Tad Murty, professors in the University of Ottawa’s Department of Civil Engineering, are among the four researchers to receive the 2010 Tsunami Society Award for outstanding and original contributions to the science of tsunamis hazards.

Ioan Nistor is an associate professor of hydraulic and coastal engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering and vice-dean of graduate studies at the Faculty of Engineering. Nistor obtained his hydrotechnical engineer diploma from the Technical University of Iasi in Romania and his PhD in coastal engineering from Yokohama National University in Japan. Ioan Nistor is also the Chair of the Hydrotechnical Division of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Coastal Science and Engineering Association. Nistor was also recently awarded the 2010 Excellence in Education Award from the University of Ottawa.

Tad Murty is an adjunct professor in the University of Ottawa’s Department of Civil Engineering. He studied meteorology and oceanography in India and at the University of Chicago. Murty specializes in the mathematical modelling of natural hazards and climate change, with particular emphasis on coastal inundation. He served as a senior research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, director of the National Tidal Facility of Australia and professor of Earth sciences at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. During his career in Australia, he was also director of the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project for the South Pacific islands. Murty is an editor for the prestigious international scientific journal Natural Hazards and an associate editor for the journal Marine Geodesy.

The International Tsunami Society was founded in 1982 by W. M. Adams, A. S. Furumoto and G. Pararas-Carayannis in Honolulu, Hawaii. It serves as a professional society and as a central organization promoting research and supporting efforts to increase and disseminate knowledge about tsunamis and related hazards.

The University of Ottawa is committed to research excellence and encourages an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge creation, which attracts the best academic talent from across Canada and around the world.