Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 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.

Professionally, I have worked as an academic, a government researcher, and a policy officer in the federal government, so I can bring perspectives relevant to several different communities within AGU. Also, as a transdisciplinary scientist who is deeply engaged in community-based research and mentorship, I hope to voice perspectives from those involved in the science-society interface, where conventional metrics of achievement and standard career paths don't always apply. This perspective has informed my service as a founding leader of the GeoHealth section and my research and teaching with underserved communities in the U.S. and in low and middle income countries. It would be a priority for me as a Board member. Finally, as a human being, I am deeply concerned with climate action. AGU has an opportunity and responsibility to lead through our research, education, outreach, and actions. The Board needs to help translate our community values and our experience during the COVID-19 pandemic to climate action in both our strategic plan and our operations as a professional society.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

AGU GeoHealth section: Founding Secretary and Fall Meeting Program Committee Chair, then President-Elect and President — experience establishing and leading a transdisciplinary section; World Meteorological Organization (WMO): co-chair of the COVID-19 Task Team — led interdisciplinary team on policy-sensitive topic; Baltimore City Sustainability Commission: Commissioner — work to implement the City's Sustainability Plan, which views sustainability through a lens of racial equity; U.N. Group on Earth Observations: Chair of Health Community of Practice Heat Work Group; AGU Eos: Science Adviser; Johns Hopkins University: Department Diversity Champion

The AGU strategic plan presents a bold and visionary direction for the organization. Board members must work together with each other, other volunteer leaders, and staff to play a key role in implementing the plan. What are the key features of the strategic plan that you find most exciting? What features do you think will be most challenging? As a Board member how would you partner with others to implement the strategic plan?

AGU has an ambitious and inspiring strategic plan. All components are important, and I am particularly motivated by the commitment to “establish broad partnerships” beyond traditional membership. I devote much of my research and teaching to co-creation of knowledge with communities, and I hope to help AGU to use its voice to promote best practices—as we are working to do in the GeoHealth section — and to identify career paths and funding structures consistent with a co-creation approach to knowledge. Within the “partnerships” goal I also hope to contribute to “embedding Earth and space sciences” across sectors, as my work in GeoHealth and my engagement with local and federal government and public-private partnerships has provided no shortage of learning experiences in this area — often by getting it wrong the first time. Effective partnership for AGU also depends inherently on the other strategic goals: partnership requires an inclusive culture of mutual respect, with an eagerness to learn from others, and it requires a passion to catalyze new discovery, often beyond the bounds of traditional disciplines. Of course, expanding partnerships comes with challenges. These include the required knowledge to engage new communities, the confines of traditional disciplinary models, and the need to maintain AGU’s standing of excellence in discovery science while advancing societal benefit. Through the efforts of members, work of the Thriving Earth Exchange, the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, and other actions, AGU is already engaging these challenges. There is opportunity to build on these efforts to do much more.