Manager, ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 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.

My mother's experiences, including earning a doctorate in biochemistry from Columbia University in 1967, started my awareness of at least some of the issues faced by people who aren't a Caucasian, straight, moderately tall man. My brother and a couple of dear friends coming out helped still further. Dr. Wangari Maathai's comments in an interview with Krista Tippet about differentiating matters of faith from matters of culture caused, and still causes, me to try and think carefully about how my cultural assumptions and background lead me to narrow and biased thinking. I recognize that luck and privilege have played substantial roles in the opportunities I've had, and one of my goals for this position is to use my privilege to create opportunities for as broad a range of people as I can. I also seek to use my experience to help and mentor others while learning from those who are not constrained by my particular experiences.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

I’m privileged to have served in volunteer roles that include being an AGU Session Convener, Informatics Advisor to the European Union Biodiversity Observation Network, Board of Advisors member for the USA National Phenology Network, a mentor for the Collaborative Analysis Liaison Librarians program, and a reviewer for multiple journals. I’ve served my faith community on governance boards at the congregation and regional levels, and I am a retired Scoutmaster.

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?

My first responsibility as an elected leader is to be a listener, and my second is to do my part in fostering the continued development of an inclusive and representative community. We must ensure that all voices feel welcome in respectfully sharing their opinions and perspectives. I will partner with the others in section leadership so that we maintain and enhance an open, respectful, and collaborative leadership environment. This is all part of promoting and exemplifying an inclusive scientific culture. 
I see informatics as an enabling science – one that helps other scientists to advance human knowledge and that helps society more effectively make use of that knowledge. That enabling nature is one way we catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and societal challenges – making things easier for scientists and stakeholders, while ensuring we are not consumed by lowering that activation energy. 

As someone with a broad scientific background and range of interests, I have often served in the role of a translator, helping other experts find commonalities across disciplines, science problems, and solutions. I also spent the first 18 years of my career in the chemical industry, before moving to a national laboratory and joining the Earth science community. That broad background will be helpful in finding where my experience and network complements that of others in section leadership, so that we build the partnerships within AGU and across other organizations to advance science, while ensuring recognition of the contributions informatics makes to those advances.

Section affiliations:

Biogeosciences; Earth and Space Science Informatics; Global Environmental Change; Science and Society