Emergency Services Volunteers Annual Kickoff Event 2026

This is an annual event on behalf of the Palo Alto/Stanford Citizens Corps Council. We will recognize outstanding volunteer service among our members, socialize with one another, and hear a keynote address. This event is free and open to the public.

Reception and social hour begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo. Food and drinks will be served, and you will have the opportunity to walk around and see the exhibits and animals.
Program starts at 7:35 p.m. in the Lucy Stern Community Center Ballroom. Once you have toured the Museum & Zoo, walk across the parking lot to participate in the formal program.

Recognition: This year we will congratulate two outstanding ESV members, recognize three top tier neighborhoods (what we call our Gold Star neighborhoods) for thier level of activity, and feature a keynote presentation.

Keynote Address: Earthquakes in the Bay Area: Past events, current activity, and an outlook for the future. Annemarie Baltay, PhD

Annemarie Baltay is a research geophysicist / observational seismologist with the USGS in Moffett Field, CA who researches earthquake ground motions. She is interested in how earthquake source physics and earth materials control ground shaking measured at various locations away from an earthquake, and how we use observations of ground motion to infer knowledge about the physics of the earth. Annemarie is also involved in ground motion modeling aspects of the USGS-led ShakeAlert earthquake early warning project to alerts the U.S. West coast for earthquake ground motion before it arrives at a user's location. Originally from New York, Annemarie received her PhD in Geophysics from Stanford in 2011 and has been living in the Bay Area (currently San Mateo) ever since, where she is raising her two kids (ages 7 and 10).