Principal , Earth.Space.Chem LLC , Annandale, VA, 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 bring the perspective of a U.S.-born scientist, raised on Long Island, NY as part of a religious minority educated in diverse public school settings during a time of political, cultural, and institutional changes. These experiences made me aware of the need for working on behalf of the good of greater society in the face of internal and external challenges.

I attended a local college on a scholarship, living at home while working part time, minimizing the financial impact on me and my family. I then went straight to graduate school, followed by a short post-doc role before joining NASA, where I worked as a research scientist, program manager, and senior executive until my retirement in 2025. In these roles, I worked to provide opportunities for early career researchers and institutions that were not heavily represented in our investigator community. I have been married over 41 years and co-raised three now adult daughters, who have reinforced my commitment to the need to support a healthy environment and career opportunities for future generations. I would bring to AGU my record of public service, community building, scientific integrity, and a commitment to making sure that AGU science both involves and benefits all.

Volunteer experience that you feel relates to this position:

For AGU, I served one term on the Publications Committee, and also as Co-Secretary of the Atmospheric Sciences section. More recently, I helped write AGU's new Position Statement on Government Support of Earth and Space Science (still under final revision), and I participated in AGU's Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill in 2026. My volunteer roles in other professional societies included a 3-year leadership term for the Section on Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

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?

If elected as President-Elect of the Global Environmental Change (GEC) section, my primary goal would be to serve as a “two-way bridge” between the AGU leadership and staff and the GEC section members. I would start by listening to the section’s diverse membership and then work to ensure that the section members are aware of and engaged with all that AGU has to offer to them (beyond just meetings and journals – volunteer and leadership opportunities, policy engagement, honors, education, outreach, mentoring, and advocacy). Similarly, I would help ensure that the AGU leadership and staff are aware of and responsive to the section members’ needs and concerns.

With this engagement, the section’s members can both contribute to and benefit from AGU’s vision of a thriving, sustainable, and equitable future by promoting both discovery and solution-oriented science and creating and nurturing partnerships across sections, institutions, governments, and the broader global research community.

My ultimate goal would be for the GEC section to be a welcoming and meaningful “home” to all interested AGU members from early career to senior levels, incorporating their diverse disciplinary interests and their studies of how human and natural forces affect and are affected by our global environment. I would especially support the planning of an engaging set of GEC sessions at the annual meeting that both complement those from other sections and reflect the full breadth of the GEC community’s background and interests through their involvement in session proposals, submissions, and discussions.