Professor, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 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.

I'm a first-generation college student. Neither of my parents went to college, and I spent much of my undergrad in an engineering track without a clear sense of career direction. Planetary science wasn't on my radar when I started. I came to the field through a non-linear path that ran through industry, federal labs, and academia.

Part of that path is commercial space. I worked at Malin Space Science Systems before joining Arizona State University (ASU), and as Director of Projects for the ASU NewSpace Initiative I work to connect academic planetary researchers with the commercial space sector. The bridge between traditional planetary science and the commercial space industry, including NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), commercial cubesats, and small-mission programs, is reshaping how planetary science gets done.

I'm also a parent of two young kids in a dual-career academic household, and the work-life pressures early and mid-career colleagues face are not abstract to me. I have celiac disease, so I've experienced what it's like to need accommodation for an invisible condition. These are the perspectives I'd bring to section leadership.

Volunteer experience that you feel relates to this position:

AGU Planetary Sciences section session chair (2011, 2013); regular peer reviewer for AGU planetary science journals (2009–present). Executive Committee member, Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (2022–present). Ongoing service on NASA program review panels and mission instrument review boards. Graduated eight Ph.D. students as primary advisor and four M.S. students; currently advise two Ph.D. students in planetary nuclear spectroscopy and data analysis.

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?

AGU's strategic plan ties three goals together: catalyzing discovery and solution-based science, promoting an inclusive scientific culture, and partnering broadly to address scientific and societal challenges. The Planetary Sciences section is well-positioned to advance all three.

Supporting the Board, staff, and other sections: I would bring the section's perspective to Council clearly and constructively. The current federal environment makes AGU's advocacy and legal defense of science consequential, and the section's coordination with the Planetary Society and other partners on bipartisan NASA-science engagement fits AGU's broad-partnership goal directly. Planetary science also has natural overlaps with adjacent sections; substantive cross-section programming, rather than parallel silos, is something I'd push for on Council.

Engaging section members to execute the strategic plan: the Awards committee and student/early career representative slots are where the inclusive-culture goal actually gets executed inside the section, and I would recruit and support people who keep those pipelines transparent and timely. Working with the program committee, I'd push for Fall Meeting sessions accessible to the full breadth of the section, observers, modelers, lab and mission scientists, instrument builders, and to early career members in particular. Council decisions need to come back to the membership clearly, and members need regular channels for raising concerns up to Council. The bridge between traditional planetary science and the commercial space community is reshaping how the field operates, and section leadership should make sure those members are represented as well.