Senior Policy Advisor, California Office of Energy Safety, Sacramento, CA, USA

AGU embraces the global community and welcomes leaders representing various identities, voices and perspectives. List any identities, voices and perspectives you would bring, including but not limited to nationality, regional representations, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and anything else you feel comfortable sharing.

My background is rooted in public service and spans polar science support, science, and (now) science policy. My academic origins stem from an Ethnic Studies undergraduate degree and a graduate education in glaciology. No doubt, my undergraduate degree deepened my capacity for empathy and taught me to champion diversity, equity, and inclusion. My graduate experiences provided helpful polar lessons in teamwork and humility. My work with SEARCH introduced me to different ways of knowing.

I learned the value of public service as a Team Leader in an AmeriCorps program. The team-based, national service effort taught me how to make meaningful connections with people across America and run a chainsaw. The privilege to serve communities led to my wildland firefighter days, which ultimately allowed me to work as a helicopter safety officer in the U.S. Antarctic Program supporting science.

I also credit my many years learning and performing improv for informing my perspective. Not only has the theater given me experiences from which to facilitate science communication workshops, the philosophy of improv gifted me with a capacity to collaborate and work with others that has served me well, on two ice sheets and in the halls of government.

Volunteer experience that you feel relates to this position:

I have served in various positions within AGU, including my current roles as Science Policy Track co-lead in the Science and Society section and Executive Committee Member (and Liaison) in the Cryosphere section. Over the last decade, I have also volunteered as a science communication facilitator for AGU, reviewed Congressional science fellowship applications for the American Geosciences Institute (AGI), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and AGU, and served as a Co-Production Team Member with the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program.

Section presidents and presidents-elect serve as members of the AGU Council and lead their sections. The AGU Council is a diverse forum of perspectives that meets throughout the year to provide input to the AGU Board, staff, and other parts of the organization. Three communities within the Council - committee chairs, section leaders, and students and early career scientists - serve different roles in AGU and bring unique viewpoints to ongoing discussions.

This role aims to catalyze community and build AGU as envisioned by the strategic plan. This leadership position is a dual role: helping to advance AGU’s strategic plan as a member of Council; and leading your section. How would you support the Board, staff and other sections to achieve AGU’s vision, values, mission, and goals? How will you engage with members of your section to execute AGU’s strategic plan?

I commit to supporting the Board, staff, and other sections of AGU with enthusiasm and perspective. These traits helped steer my temperament while working with staff across the aisle on the Hill in DC, informed my diplomacy while working at the U.S. Department of State, and powered my desire to help people while supporting federal and state policymaking. I will endeavor to embody the values of AGU—excellence, integrity, respect, diversity, collaboration, and science education and outreach—to faithfully work towards achieving AGU's strategic goals.

With so many people working together, I recognize it is also important to be respectful, to communicate concisely, and to come ready to work. I hope to support the AGU community by arriving on station filled with some of that “new person” energy, for lack of a better descriptor, that helps fuel community efforts and bolster the group’s sense of purpose. I also hope that I may support the Board, staff, and other sections of AGU with potentially relevant lessons learned over the past decade operating at the nexus of science and policy. For example, I am especially enthusiastic for how my career history may positively inform AGU’s work involving “scientific and societal challenges.”

Similarly, I will strive to engage members of my section with the same enthusiasm and perspective. I will work to communicate clearly and dispassionately to allow section leadership and members to faithfully engage in AGU activities of their own accord. And I will seek counsel from current and previous leadership.