Professor, Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo
Kenji Satake is a Japanese seismologist who has made significant contributions to subduction and tsunami research. Along with Brian Atwater and David Yamaguchi, Satake assembled disparate pieces of information regarding a Japanese tsunami that had no known origin – an orphan tsunami. The three scientists worked together to pinpoint a date, time, and location for the 1700 Cascadia earthquake – 9 p.m. on January 26, 1700 – on the Cascadia subduction zone off the Pacific Northwest coast of North America.