Staff Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 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.

I'm an early career scientist and woman in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). As an early career scientist, I am navigating the challenges of beginning a career in GeoHealth. I'm a first generation college student and the first Ph.D. in my extended family. I'm originally from Michigan and now live in New Mexico.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

Interim Secretary of GeoHealth, Jan 2022-Dec 2022; Co-chair for GeoHealth Meetings Committee, Jan 2019-Dec 2021, Jan 2023-Current; GeoHealth Journal Editor in Chief Search Committee, 2023; Chair on the U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR) Working Group on Climate and Health, Jun 2023-Current; Steering Committee Member for the Dust Alliance for North America, May 2022-Current; President and co-founder of zotCAMS: Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society at the University of California, Irvine, Apr 2017-Jun 2019

As one of the elected leaders of your section, how will you partner with your president, president-elect, other leaders, and staff to communicate with and engage your members to achieve AGU’s vision, values, mission, and goals?

As the elected Secretary, it’s critical to partner with the other executive leaders, committee leadership board, and GeoHealth members at large to ensure GeoHealth is upholding AGU’s vision, values, mission, and goals. As an executive board member of GeoHealth, I would have the moral responsibility to ensure GeoHealth is acting in coordination with AGU’s values, including transparency, professionalism, respect, diversity, collaboration, and empowering the next generation of scientists.

Currently, the GeoHealth Leadership team that serves the broader AGU GeoHealth community is comprised of the Executive Board and 6 different subcommittees. This team of ~20 people, plus tens of additional subcommittee members, ranges from students to late-stage scientists who work across a variety of universities and industry in the U.S. and abroad. The key to GeoHealth achieving growth and success is effective coordination and communication across these fronts, which I view as one of the primary functions of the Secretary position.

Though cliché, one of the most important functions as Secretary is taking meaningful and actionable meeting notes. With such a big leadership team, our own personal agendas and careers, and leadership meetings only being once a month, meeting notes are critical for documenting our fruitful brainstorming sessions, charting committee members’ next tasks, and following up to ensure each task is completed. This means that as Secretary, I would be the responsible steward for the ideas and responsibilities developed by the GeoHealth leadership team, linking the visions between GeoHealth Leadership, GeoHealth members, and AGU at large.

Section affiliations:

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