Dr. Anna Michalak is a consummate scientist and leader in the geosciences. She studies the cycling and emissions of greenhouse gases at urban to global scales — scales directly relevant to informing climate and policy — primarily using atmospheric measurements that provide the clearest constraints at these critical scales. Early in her career, she pioneered new approaches for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and for pinpointing how climate change is impacting the ability of plants and soils to store carbon. More recently, she has focused her talents on how climate change is altering coastal, lake and river water quality around the world. For instance, she and her students have shown how changes in rainfall patterns, temperature and even climate mitigation strategies can exacerbate harmful algal blooms. She has authored more than 150 publications and has mentored more than two dozen doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. Beyond her research, Anna has led efforts to better coordinate research in the scientific community, including leading the development of the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan, chairing the Scientific Advisory Board for the European Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS), and serving on multiple committees for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 

— Rob Jackson Stanford University Stanford, California

Response

I am deeply humbled to have been selected for this award and grateful to Joe Berry, Rob Jackson and my other colleagues who provided letters in support of my nomination.

Every career, and every life, is made up of millions of random events that have a disproportionate impact on where things go next. I have been deeply aware of this from a young age. Suffice it to say that if your biggest frustration on the day you read this is dealing with “reviewer #2,” then you have hit the life trajectory jackpot. The only reasonable thing to do in response, in my opinion, is to find ways to influence the world in a positive direction in whatever ways you are able.

As an environmental engineer by training, I have been deeply motivated by the need to find solutions to the challenges of global change. As an instinctively skeptical person, I have always tended toward approaches that leverage observations as directly as possible, through the tools of statistical inference. As Joe and Rob note in their kind citation, the two areas where my group has focused most are quantifying how the ability of the Earth system to store carbon is impacted by changes in climate and how those same changes in climate are also jeopardizing the sustainability of water resources through deteriorating water quality.

Since my Ph.D., it has been my honor to work alongside incredible colleagues at NOAA, the University of Michigan, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Stanford University, and the Carnegie Institution for Science. It has also been my pleasure to work with amazing students and postdocs; as I have told many of them, I love living vicariously through their experiences as they build unique and impactful careers, both within and beyond academia.

I am also deeply grateful to my family, including my forefathers (and foremothers), from whom I inherited both stubbornness and skepticism (which I have found to be very useful in science); my parents, who in ways that are still a mystery to me brought me up to believe that I am always ultimately in control of my own destiny; my husband, who is unwaveringly supportive and who truly believes in equal partnership; and my kids ,who each day give me hope for Homo sapiens sapiens as a species.

— Anna M. Michalak
Carnegie Institution for Science
Washington, D.C.