Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, 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 path in life -- from refugee of war to practicing scientist in the United States -- has made me attentive to how factors like geography, language, immigration status, access to resources, and institutional visibility affect participation in science, and how they interact with aspects of identity such as ethnic background or sexual orientation. I also bring the perspective of a researcher working across disciplinary boundaries: structural seismology, planetary science, computational methods, humanitarian geophysics, instrumentation, and earthquake hazards. My work and mentoring have emphasized collaborative science and have been shaped by service to students at a large public university. In AGU leadership, I would aim to listen actively to members across regions, career stages, institution types, and scientific approaches, and advocate for seismology and seismologists.

Volunteer experience that you feel relates to this position:

Chair of AGU Fall Meeting Program Committee for the Seismology section (2013) and the Study of the Earth's Deep Interior (SEDI) section (2018); President of the Geological Society of Washington (2025), one of the nation's oldest scientific societies, which brings together geoscientists from around the Washington, DC area for lectures, discussion, networking, and the exchange of research across the Earth sciences.

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?

My primary focus as President-Elect of AGU's Seismology section will be to interface with the broad seismological community and identify ways in which AGU can best support our multipronged scientific endeavor, the training of the next generation of seismologists, and advocacy for the scientific infrastructure that enables modern seismology. I will engage with section members through the section newsletter and office hours held during scientific meetings including, but not limited to, the AGU Fall Meeting. In my view, facilitating this flow of information from the members up to the AGU Board will be the primary way in which I support efforts to achieve AGU’s vision, values, mission, and goals.