Professor, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

AGU embraces the global community and welcomes diverse leaders from around the world, 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 any other identity you feel comfortable sharing.

Having grown up in India, gone through an educational system with limited resources, and having directly observed scientists play secondary roles in international collaborations during my undergraduate years, I am acutely aware of the challenges faced by scientists from less privileged backgrounds in becoming visible and having their voices heard. Moving to the U.S. for my Ph.D. gave me a unique perspective on the cultural and social networking challenges faced by international scholars. I look forward to bringing these experiences and perspectives in helping to further AGU’s mission of addressing scientific and societal challenges through engaging a diverse global community.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

Volunteer experience includes organizer of the summer school for the 2012 and 2018 Cooperative Institute of Dynamic Earth Research at the Kavli Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, session convener at 2015 and 2016 AGU Fall Meeting, Goldschmidt theme chair 2014, 2016, and 2022, Goldschmidt session convenor 2013, 2015, editor for the Worlds Beyond volume for the 3rd edition of the Treatise on Geochemistry.

As one of the elected leaders of your section, how will you partner with your president and president-elect to communicate with and engage your members to help implement AGU’s strategic plan including its mission and vision?

Working with the president and president-elect, I will strive to provide Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology’s (VGP) members a sense of community and belonging, which is more critical than ever after more than two years of grappling with the COVID pandemic. A key venue for such activities would be the AGU Fall Meeting. I will ensure sessions are balanced between the different topical areas in VGP, have sessions focused on pushing the boundaries of human knowledge through discovery and on pressing societal challenges, be it in volcanic hazards or in emergent areas such as clean energy. To foster new multi-disciplinary approaches to problem solving, I will co-ordinate sessions and activities with other related sections such as Study of the Earth’s Deep Interior, Mineral and Rock Physics, Seismology, and Planetary Sciences. By ensuring a diverse group of scientists to organize and run the sessions, reminding session organizers to think broadly about invited speakers, pushing for honors recognition for a more diverse group, and providing for networking opportunities, I will strive to provide a scientific home to all VGP members so that they are excited to come together to participate in the scientific endeavor, share their exciting research and learn from each other. While the VGP newsletters remain a time-tested way to communicate with members, I will also work with Eos’s Science Advisers to effectively highlight to a broad audience the many scientific stories and discoveries by the global VGP community.

Section affiliations:

Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology; Planetary Sciences; Study of the Earth's Deep Interior; Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology