Liu is the Class of 1912 Professor at Cornell University. He received his Sc.D. degree from MIT and joined Cornell faculty as an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1974. He is currently the Director of the School.He is also the holder of the Kwoh-Ting Li Chair Professorship at National Central University, Taiwan.Liu is an internationally-recognised, front-line researcher in the fields of coastal sciences and engineering. Liu has co-authored one book and co-edited more than 10 books. His 200+ archival papers have received over 3000 citations. Liu is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He has received numerous academic awards from professional societies and research community. His most recent recognition is the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2009.

On September 29, 2009 at 17:48:11 UTC a large earthquake of magnitude 8 (8.3) struck offshore of Samoa Islands and triggered a large tsunami that destroyed several villages and caused more than 150 deaths. In this seminar we will briefly the characteristics of the earthquake and discuss the best estimates of the fault parameters. The effects of these fault parameters on the leading tsunami wave characteristics will be discussed. Post-tsunami survey was conducted from October 5 to October 12, 2009. Some of the survey data, in terms of the run-up height and inundation distribution, will be shown and discussed in the seminar.