Margaret (Maggie) Exton is a 2019 Fulbright US Student Researcher studying the 2018 Sulawesi Tsunami event that struck the city of Palu. Collaborating with Dr. Hamzah Latief at the Institut Teknologi Bandung, she is conducting a case study of the event focusing on the soil instability and scour that occurred as a result of the tsunami. To accomplish this, Maggie uses numerical models, data obtained from post-tsunami field surveys, first-hand accounts of the tsunami, and characterization of the beach sediments. This information will be valuable to civil engineers and designers of coastal infrastructure in both Indonesia and the United States.

Maggie recently completed her doctorate in Civil Engineering at Oregon State University, where she studied tsunami-induced soil instability using physical experiments. Prior to beginning her research project, she will study Bahasa Indonesia as part of a Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA).