Associate Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 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.

I am a citizen of the world. I was born and raised in the Americas. My academic life started in the drylands of the U.S.-Latin America border, experiencing the benefits of the geographic proximity to educational institutions, and paradoxically challenged by the constrained access to their offer. Yet, throughout my training and practice, I have learned that in regions with a wealth of intellectual exchange, commercial trade, or even conflict, inclusive and equitable science, engineering, and policy could bring the best of all, fostering opportunities and the advancement of science and technology. As a graduate student and postdoc, I had excellent mentors that helped me navigate the sometimes turbulent waters imposed by the impostor syndrome. Yet, the educational and professional environments are not always paved with support and encouragement to achieve our success and dreams. These experiences have shaped my joy and commitment to mentoring and advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion. I have grown in pursuing collective actions that foster a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible educational-to-professional continuum for those separated by economic, idiosyncratic, and stereotypic borders within the U.S. and around the world to achieve excellence in science and technology.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

AGU session chair/co-chair on vegetation drivers of hydrologic processes; American Meteorological Society (AMS) Water Resources Committee member since 2015; AMS Presidential session cochair on water security and food security; Member of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's (UNL) task force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Co-developer of UNL's faculty recruitment, retention, and success guidelines; Co-organizer of the 2020 and 2021 symposia of faculty of color

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?

I firmly believe in collective actions to tackle the challenges we face in our communities and our Earth-living support and space systems. Intertwined and complex, Earth, space, and human systems have inspired our curiosity, fostering discovery and advancing natural, physical, and social sciences, engineering, and medicine. In my role as secretary of the Hydrology section, we will support our president and the president-elect in their mission to make our section an inclusive collective that promotes the exchange of ideas and communication within its membership and across multiple organizations. I will facilitate the participation of the members of our section to capture the diversity of individual and collective experiences, creating effective actions in addressing our communities’ susceptibility to unexpected events where water becomes a limiting element or a driver of unforeseen events. The mosaic of ingenuity characteristic of our section and our union will continue its commitment to discovery, fostering transformative actions that will make our science “used” and accessible to all. 

Corollary: While writing these lines amid global health, environmental, and other social crises, I have talked with students of all levels whose social and environmental safety is continuously triggering unprecedented anxiety levels about climate change. This situation is a constant reminder about our individual and collective responsibilities not just to inherit a safe world for all and the generations to come but to ethically and enthusiastically advance our science and technology to inform our communities, our policies, and the decisions we make. We can work together!

Section affiliations:

Atmospheric Sciences; Biogeosciences; Earth and Space Science Informatics; Global Environmental Change; Hydrology; Natural Hazards