Global Futures Professor, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 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.

Throughout my career, some of my key core values have revolved around including a diverse range of voices on my team, in my collaborations, and in how I conduct myself as a leader, e.g. as institute director or potentially as an elected leader of the Hydrology section.

There are several voices that I advocate for.

These include women, the people and countries in Africa (e.g. Egypt, Uganda), the Middle East (e.g. Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula), and South Asia (e.g. India, Bangladesh), and the LGBTQIA+ community. My own research team, and the collaborative teams that I build, generally include this range of voices.

I am a staunch advocate for transdisciplinary research. In recent years, I have built strong connections across multiple sectors outside of academia and research. These include government, non-profits, diplomats, development banks, investors, science communicators, and the private sector.

I am a firm believer that we must elevate the voices of graduate students and early career researchers. The future of our section is their future.

I feel strongly that our research will be stronger by including these unique perspectives. Moreover, its potential for application to a far broader range of solutions will be greatly enhanced.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

As elected Chair of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Board of Directors (2008-2010), I represented 100+ university members, I oversaw CUAHSI's successful National Science Foundation renewal, and the writing of its first strategic plan. I served a 6-year term on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources (2017-2023), and my 13 years of editorial experience culminated in a 4-year term as Geophysical Research Letters Chief Editor. Both activities allowed me to experience how to best support and promote our work across the disciplines.

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?

The urgency of climate change, of which water cycle change is an integral component, has raised the stakes for the AGU. AGU members are creators of new and increasingly important knowledge, but the world cannot advance solutions unless membership collaborates broadly beyond the research world. As a committed transdisciplinary researcher, I will work across AGU to strengthen engagement with industry, government agencies, non-profits, policymakers, and communicators, and build the bridge between discovery and use-inspired research.

While it is important for AGU to train younger generations of membership to advance its mission and goals of broader collaborations, it is equally important to entrain even younger generations of middle and high school students in this endeavor. I will work within the section, and across AGU, to raise awareness of ever-increasing career opportunities in sustainability – careers that simply did not exist a decade ago – towards a goal of increasing the number of Earth science majors across the nation’s colleges. A focus will be disadvantaged communities, which bear the brunt of climate change.

Scientists are sometimes viewed with skepticism in the U.S. This may stem from a lack of understanding of what we do and its importance. I will work within the section to create new opportunities for science communication and training. As with all relationships, trust is key, and clear communication is paramount. Clearly explaining our work, whether it is discovery-based or co-developed, is essential to rebuilding and sustaining the broader set of collaborations required to enable long-term water security.

Section affiliations:

Biogeosciences; Geodesy; Global Environmental Change; Hydrology