Natural Hazards Early Career Award
Information on the Award
Award Benefits
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1Award Certificate
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2Recognition in Eos
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3Recognition at the AGU Fall Meeting during the award presentation year
Eligibility
Nominee Eligibility
- The nominee is required to be an active AGU member.
- The nominee must be affiliated with the Natural Hazards section (primary or secondary).
- The nominee must have been awarded their Ph.D. or highest terminal degree within the ten-year period before the award presentation year.
- AGU Honors Program Career Stage Eligibility Requirement Allowance Policy: Exceptions to this eligibility requirement can be considered based on family or medical leave circumstances, nominees whose work conditions have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, or for other extenuating circumstances. All requests will be reviewed. For questions contact [email protected].
- The following individuals are not eligible to be candidates for the award during their terms of service:
- AGU President;
- AGU President-elect;
- Council Leadership Team members;
- Honors and Recognition Committee members;
- Natural Hazards Early Career Award Committee members;
- All full-time AGU staff; and
- AGU Fellows.
Nominator Eligibility
- Nominators are required to hold an active AGU membership.
- The following individuals are not eligible to be nominators for the award during their terms of service:
- AGU President;
- AGU President-elect;
- Council Leadership Team members;
- Honors and Recognition Committee members;
- Natural Hazards Early Career Award Committee members; and
- All full-time AGU staff
Supporter Eligibility
- Supporters are required to hold an active AGU membership.
- The following individuals are not eligible to be nominators for the award during their terms of service:
- AGU President;
- AGU President-elect;
- Council Leadership Team members;
- Honors and Recognition Committee members;
- Natural Hazards Early Career Award Committee members; and
- All full-time AGU staff
Relationships
The following relationships need to be identified and communicated to the Award Committee but will not disqualify individuals from participating in the nomination or committee review process. These apply to committee members, nominators, and supporters:
- Current dean, departmental chair, supervisor, supervisee, laboratory director, an individual with whom one has a current business or financial relationship (e.g., business partner, employer, employee)
- Research collaborator or co-author within the last three years
- An individual working at the same institution or having accepted a position at the same institution
Individuals with the following relationships are disqualified from participating in the award nomination process as a nominator or supporter:
- Family member, spouse, or partner
- A previous graduate (Master’s or Ph.D.) and/or postdoctoral advisor, or postdoctoral fellow may not write a nomination letter but may write a supporting letter after five years of terminating their relationship with the nominee beginning on 1 January after the year the relationship was terminated.
- A former doctoral or graduate student, or a former postdoctoral fellow may not write a nomination letter for a former advisor but may write a supporting letter after five years of terminating their relationship with the nominee beginning on 1 January after the year the relationship was terminated.
Nomination Package
- A nomination letter that states how the nominee meets the selection criteria. It should include details about the impact or potential impact of the nominee’s research on the field of natural hazards and risk. Nominator’s signature, name, title, institution, and contact information are required, and letterhead is preferred.
- A curriculum vitae for the nominee.
- Three copies of the nominee's published or preprint manuscripts, which illustrate the nominee’s quality of work.
- Three letters of support. Supporter’s signature, name, title, institution, and contact information are required, and letterhead is preferred. We encourage letters from individuals not currently or recently associated with the candidate’s institution of graduate education or employment.
- The nominee's bibliography is also required.
Submission Process
The nomination cycle is now open until 12 April.
We encourage you to watch our tutorial on successfully submitting a nomination package or read our guide on how to submit a successful nomination.
Recipients
Mojtaba Sadegh
Xie Hu
Citation
As the Ph.D. adviser of Dr. Xie Hu, I congratulate Xie for the 2022 AGU Natural Hazards Early Career Award for the innovative study of natural hazards using radar remote sensing and geophysical modeling. Xie received a B.S. in GIS from China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, in 2011 and an M.S. in remote sensing from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 2013. She joined Southern Methodist University (SMU) in August 2014 to pursue a Ph.D. in geophysics with a focus on natural hazards studies using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations and geophysical modeling. After Xie received her Ph.D. from SMU in 2018, she worked with Prof. Roland Bürgmann at the University of California, Berkeley as a postdoc during 2018–2020. After being an assistant professor at the University of Houston for 1 year, Xie joined the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University in 2021. Xie’s research focuses on using remote sensing data, especially InSAR, to characterize ground deformation and surface disturbance associated with natural hazards. She also has been engaged in investigating triggering mechanisms of natural hazards based on statistical, numerical, and analytical models, and artificial intelligence. Her interdisciplinary research spans the fields of natural hazards, geodesy, geophysics, geology, hydrology, civil and environmental engineering, and climate sciences. As an early-career scientist, Xie is already scientifically prolific in natural hazards studies. She published 20 papers in high-impact journals, including 13 first-authored ones. A glimpse into her research highlights includes the following: (1) quantifying surface deformation and inverting subsurface channel geometry/thickness and hydrogeological forcings of landslides; (2) unveiling and forecasting the decaying consolidation settlement of tailings impoundment and surface deformation associated with mountain excavation and city construction; (3) investigating stress perturbations and seismicity due to mining waste transfer and hydrological load changes, and diagnosing hydromechanical coupling in shallow crust during underground coal mining; (4) quantifying water storage cycles of aquifers and basin-wide hydrogeological properties by correlating seasonal displacements and groundwater levels; and (5) synergizing hydroclimatic, topographic, geological, and seismological data sets to characterize land motions and surface disturbance due to winter storms using machine learning. Xie is an early-career scientist of high diligence and intelligence and has demonstrated outstanding critical thinking and exceptional capability for frontier research. Xie is innovative in her scientific interests in a very broad range of natural and anthropogenic hazards using advanced tools and methods, and hence truly deserves the 2022 Natural Hazards Early Career Award. —Zhong Lu, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
Response
I feel truly honored to receive this AGU Natural Hazards Early Career Award. I am grateful to my advisers, mentors, and colleagues for their nomination and recognition in a common research field that I have been dedicated to for the past decade. Natural hazards generalize the environmental phenomena that put lives and property at risk. Everyone around the world is vulnerable to natural hazards. Research on natural hazards requires cross-disciplinary knowledge to bridge the gaps between observations and mechanisms, between risks and policies, and between engineering and science. Enlightened by the academic programs in geophysics, remote sensing, and GIS that I enrolled in and by numerous critical discussions with my advisers and colleagues, I was motivated to research natural hazards using remote sensing data and methods. My research has been relying on radar remote sensing and mathematical and physical models to elucidate the spatial and temporal ground deformation and land cover changes associated with natural hazards such as landslides, groundwater depletion, and extreme precipitation events. Beyond that, we also explore the role of geological and hydroclimatic variables as well as human activities in the timing, geographic locations, and triggering mechanisms of individual and cascading hazardous event(s). Like many early-career scientists in their thirties from different parts of the world, we are in an age with seemingly insurmountable challenges. This recognition from our field of professionals gives me enormous strength to keep moving forward. I will continue developing remote sensing methods and quantitative models to better understand the dynamic processes and mechanisms of natural hazards. As a junior faculty, I hope my teaching and advisership can help the younger generations gain a better understanding of natural hazards, motivate their knowledge-seeking behaviors, and develop their career paths in related fields. —Xie Hu, Peking University, Beijing
Chia-Ying Lee
Daniel B Wright
Ning Lin
Honors Contacts
