Professor, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 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.

First, I bring a historical perspective or long-view to the EPSP community. In 2009, I was an Executive Committee Member for the newly formed Earth and Planetary Surface Processes focus group that later became an AGU section. This long-term participation provides insight into the present-day working of the section, as well as AGU as a whole.

On the personal side, my enduring interracial marriage and its merging of different family traditions, worldviews, and language, continues to grow my awareness and acceptance of each other's distinct racial and ethnic experiences in society.

Finally, working for multiple decades at a large public university continuously exposes me to individuals diverse in age, educational experience (e.g., 1st generation), race, and ethnicity. Fortunately, as an Earth scientist, this exposure is not limited to the office and classroom, but includes extended time in the field observing Earth’s surface system and facilitating lengthy, ongoing discussions of both shared and unique experiences.

Volunteer experience that you feel relates to this position:

Awards Committee Member for Earth and Planetary Surface Processes (EPSP) section of AGU, 2022, 2024; Expert Panel Member evaluating potential impacts of neotectonics on management of coastal natural resources and restoration for the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority,  2019 – 2023; conference co-organizer, From Ice Sheets to the Coast: Sea-Level Rise Impacts, Houston, TX, 2024. Connected coastal scientists and community leaders with cryosphere scientists to explore the source and receiver end of sea level rise.

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?

For this leadership position I would rely on my six years of experience working as the Associate Dean for Research in a school of geoscience within a much larger university. Success in that job, like this position requires effective interfacing with a central administration, the AGU Council and Board, as well as with the individual members and interested groups composing EPSP. Simultaneously promoting discovery-driven science and solution-based science comes naturally to me; both are required in today’s world. Science that benefits humanity and the environment is straightforward for members of the EPSP section because Earth’s surface is the environment, and that is what we study. Within EPSP I would seek to identify, work with, and help to promote champions of exciting science directions and projects, whether individuals or groups of individuals. At the Council and Board level, I would act as a champion for ideas and projects that are resonating within EPSP. At both levels I would take advantage of my experiences working with community leaders, individuals from nongovernmental organizations, state agencies, the insurance/reinsurance industry, the energy industry, as well as the health sciences when promoting the really big challenges facing society and the planet. Finally, I would work hard to ensure that our next generation of scientists have the tools and resources needed to advance EPSP and AGU into the future.