Research Hydrologist, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Corvallis, OR, 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.

My voice and perspectives are inevitably tempered by my background and experiences. I’m an “elder” scientist (i.e., old dog) who has worked internationally across boundaries my whole career. My research draws on both fundamental and applied approaches, at the disciplinary boundary of fluvial geomorphology, geology, and hydrology. Professionally I’ve worked at the boundary between Federal science (my official position) and academic science (where I’ve been a tenured Courtesy Professor for decades). Somewhat closer to home, I work as a sighted individual with poor eyesight, and a fortunate scientist who still remembers what it’s like to be a struggling graduate student.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

I've served in various positions within AGU, providing me a good feel for the organization. These include: Earth and Planetary Surface Processes section President; AGU Council; Council Leadership Team; College of Fellows (COF) Executive Committee; chair, COF New Frontiers Committee; chair and member of several AGU journal editor-in-chief search committees; and Deputy and Associate Editor of Water Resources Research. I've also been Board Member and Chair of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI).

Board members work together with other volunteer leaders and staff to play a key role in implementing AGU’s strategic plan. What aspects of the strategic plan do you see yourself contributing to the most? How would you work with others to advance AGU’s values, vision, mission, and goals?

• What aspects of the strategic plan do you see yourself contributing to the most?

AGU’s strategic plan represents an ambitious, aspirational agenda with three distinct goals that as a Board member I would aim to integrate. These goals of advancing discovery and solution-focused science, fostering new partnerships, and promoting inclusive science, are best achieved when taken together rather than pursued in isolation. For example, working with AGU staff, the New Frontiers Committee of the College of Fellows (which I chair) engaged with the National Science Foundation (NSF), Geological Society of America, American Meteorological Society and others (all new partners) to analyze climate change solutions (discovery and solution science), that would broaden engagement and justify new NSF funding (inclusive science). I want AGU to seek these integrated opportunities globally, and feel I can help facilitate these initiatives.

• How would you work with others to advance AGU’s values, vision, mission, and goals?

In a word, respectfully. AGU is a big organization, its mission, goals, and values are multifaceted, the Board, Council, and staff represent many people having to work together, the larger cultural environment in which this work gets done is dynamic and changing, resources are limited, many cultures and first languages are present, and everyone is busy. To be effective in this ecosystem requires respect for other’s points of view, a capacity to listen, learn, and change one’s mind, and an ability to keep one’s eye on the big picture and the long view. These are traits that I would bring to the Board.

Section affiliations:

Earth and Planetary Surface Processes; Global Environmental Change; Hydrology; Natural Hazards; Science and Society; Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology