Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 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.

I am white, present as a cis man, and recognize that all of my demographic characteristics are overrepresented in geosciences. I recognize my obligation to listen to and amplify the voices of those who have different identities and backgrounds to mine.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

Advisor to Nashville Mayor's Sustainability Advisory Committee (2020-present); External Advisory Committee, Urban Water Innovation Network, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Sustainability Research Network (2016-2021); Program Committee, Environmental and Sustainability Applications track, Winter Simulation Conference (2016-present); Associate Editor for Climate Law and Policy, Frontiers in Climate (2020-present); Worked with Inside Climate News to provide training to journalists in the Southeast and Midwest for reporting on climate change (2018-2019)

This leadership position is a liaison role; it is one that aims to catalyze community and build AGU as envisioned by the strategic plan. How will you engage with members of your section to advance AGU’s strategic plan? How will you facilitate engagement with other sections and people outside AGU to support our mission?

The AGU’s three strategic goals are to catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and social challenges, to promote and exemplify an inclusive scientific culture, and to develop partnerships beyond AGU to address scientific and societal challenges. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is especially important to AGU because geosciences are less diverse than the U.S. population, and have a lower proportion of Black scientists than most other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. Section presidents have powerful platforms from which to promote DEI in the section, and I will ensure that Global Environmental Change (GEC) section business, such as selection of award and lecture recipients, is conducted with active attention to fairness and diversity and with compliance and accountability to the AGU code of conduct. As the primary liaison between the section and the AGU Council, I will seek input from section members about our performance on DEI and will convey concerns to the Council. I will draw on my experience in interdisciplinary research and my engagement with policymaking and the public to build upon and enhance GEC’s strengths in effectively engaging with other scholarly societies and with the public, journalists, planners, policymakers, businesses, educators, and others in the U.S. and abroad about the challenges of and practical responses to environmental change. There has been growing concern among the AGU membership about the carbon footprint of Fall Meetings, which has stimulated articles in Eos and statements from the AGU president. I will convey ongoing concerns about making AGU sustainable to the Council.

Section affiliations:

Atmospheric Sciences; Global Environmental Change; Natural Hazards; Science and Society