Ph.D. Student, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 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.

As a woman in science, I am passionate about and committed to creating an inviting environment for my peers to flourish in their scientific careers. My perspective on diversity in science is shaped by my experiences navigating the male-dominated fields of physics, astronomy, and policy, where I often felt unheard and overlooked. While the climate for women has improved, it is imperative to continue making purposeful steps towards equity.

Though I cannot speak to the experiences myself, I recognize and support parallel struggles faced by my peers who are international students or belong to underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. True equity for women cannot be achieved without equity for all marginalized groups. These conversations can be difficult to have, and my volunteer experience discussing DEI with black and brown youth in Boston has equipped me to address these topics with sensitivity and respect. As a student/early career representative, my goal is to amplify the voices of my peers and shape an environment that will enable them to succeed in their careers.

Volunteer experience that relates to this position:

My volunteer experiences focus on science communication and education. While an undergraduate at Northeastern University (NEU), I wrote and edited for the science magazine NUSci, covering a breadth of topics from monsoons to astrobiology to political polling and taking care to provide constructive feedback to my writers. At NEU I was also a mentor with the program Strong Women, Strong Girls, facilitating weekly diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) conversations with Boston public elementary school girls.

The student and early career voices on the Council are critical to the future of Earth and space sciences. Describe a time when you used your voice to inspire others to advance a cause, mission, or goal.

A recent and exemplary time when I used my voice to advance a goal was during the 2024 Astrobiology Graduate Conference's proposal writing retreat. The goal of the retreat was for small groups to write mock ROSES (Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences) style proposals, with one proposal chosen to be "funded" at the end of the retreat. I was selected as the Principal Investigator for my group's project, responsible for overseeing the scientific merit of our proposal and advocating for it through a series of presentations to the other participants. To effectively communicate our ideas to the participants, I tailored our presentations to the diverse scientific backgrounds in the room by defining jargon in plain language, explaining the reasoning behind methodologies, and contextualizing the project's outcomes. Perhaps the most importantly, I incorporated feedback into subsequent presentations and highlighted the updates, demonstrating open-mindedness and adaptability. This iterative process improved the proposal's scientific merit and logistical feasibility. While the scientific quality of all proposals was impressive, I believe it was our commitment to clear communication and responsiveness to feedback that ultimately earned us the votes for best proposal. This experience underscores my skills in effective advocacy and adaptability that were honed through my previous volunteer work and that I hope to bring to AGU Council.

Section affiliations:

Atmospheric Sciences; Planetary Sciences