To celebrate LGBT History Month, 2013, Polari is publishing a daily series of LGBT Heroes, selected by the magazine’s team of writers and special contributors.

Kate Hutton – Seismologist
by Christopher Bryant
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Kate Hutton is a seismologist who works at the California Institute of Technology.  Her nickname is “Earthquake Lady”, and whenever there is an earthquake in Los Angeles, it’s Hutton who is called upon to calm people down by explaining exactly what happened. And she is trusted.

When Hutton concludes, for example – “I would tell people, like any earthquake in California, to consider it as a reminder to get the battery and food and water and everything. But I don’t think there’s a big danger from it.” – she uses science to explain the meaning of a given event. Yet she also balances this with reports of what people felt on the ground, and always highlights the human angle.

Hutton trained as an astronomer, and graduated with a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Maryland, but in her working life she has always been employed as a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology.  In an interesting sidebar, Hutton was the consultant seismologist for the Kevin Bacon b-movie Tremors (although IMDB neglects to credit her input). The science is, unusually for Hollywood, considered decidedly accurate.

In 1984, Hutton gave a tour of the seismology lab to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Scientists, and that is when she came out both personally and professionally. She is a highly visible and a highly trusted public figure who alleviates people’s fears in the wake of unpredictable, natural disasters. And there is a great power in that.