Global Environmental Change Awardees
Change Award and Lecture
Citation
Prof. Zhengyu Liu is an intellectual leader at the intersection of climate dynamics, Earth system modeling, and paleoclimate reconstruction who has developed a deep understanding of Earth system interactions and global climate and environmental change. Liu’s work is underpinned by his strong modeling acumen and rich knowledge of the mechanics of the atmosphere and oceans, and their interactions that bear on questions that challenge other disciplines. One example is the Holocene temperature conundrum. Here, most proxy data suggest warmer global temperatures during the early to mid-Holocene and cooler temperatures in the late Holocene, culminating in the Little Ice Age and subsequent anthropogenic warming. Climate models suggest an opposing scenario. Liu is deeply involved in efforts to resolve this important issue, as both cannot be correct. He also applies his modeling expertise to better understand such complex processes as the decadal climate variability, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), monsoons, and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and thereby unravel the dynamical interactions among different regions of Earth’s climate system and examine climate variability over a broad spectrum of timescales ranging from glacial/interglacial to decadal and interannual. His work on the AMOC, one of the most active components of our climate system with the potential to initiate abrupt climate changes over the globe, has profound implications for our projections of future climate change.
Bert Bolin, the Swedish meteorologist for whom this award is named, spent time at Princeton working with Jule Charney, John von Neumann, and others on the first computerized weather forecast. However, his most impactful contributions led to the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by bringing together numerous scientists with diverse backgrounds. Much like Bolin, Liu collaborates with many of the world’s best climate modelers, climatologists, oceanographers, and paleoclimatologists and crosses disciplinary lines easily and productively. He has been a leader in the application of climate models with isotopes to understand the formation mechanism of oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation preserved in speleothems and, more recently, in ice cores. His leadership in the development and application of the isotope-enabled Earth system model to past climate changes has and will continue to improve our fundamental understanding of the climatic interpretation of stable water isotopes globally. The impact of Prof. Zhengyu Liu’s extensive body of work on the scholarship and productivity of his colleagues in both the modeling and paleoclimate communities has been extensive and transformative.
—Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Ohio State University, Columbus
Response
It is my great honor to receive the 2022 Bert Bolin Global Environmental Change Award and Lecture. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Ellen Mosley-Thompson for nominating me and to my references for their strong support.
The study of global climate change is especially exciting due to its transdisciplinary nature: The climate on our planet is a complex system that involves not only the atmosphere, but also the ocean, land, and cryosphere. It is determined by physical as well as biogeochemical processes, it varies in its spatial scale from localized to global, and it spans from daily time frames to those that extend millions of years. Our climate has experienced dramatic changes in the past 4.5 billion years through natural forces and has just recently started a new journey alongside our human beings. This complexity poses a great challenge to all climate scientists, and we must use the lessons learned from the rich history of Earth’s climate to better predict our future.
In my journey of exploring global climate change, I have had the great fortune of working with many of the best scientists in the world across various disciplines. The interactions are stimulating and rewarding, and I would like to express my great gratitude and acknowledgment for the tremendous amount I have learned from them.
My gratitude extends further back to those who have helped me arrive here, especially my Ph.D. adviser, Joe Pedlosky, who taught me how to think about the fundamentals of climate dynamics; my postdoc mentor, George Philander, who showed me how to view climate from the perspective of a coupled ocean-atmosphere system; and my colleague John Kutzbach, who introduced me to thinking of global climate from both past and future from an interdisciplinary perspective. Finally, but not the least, I owe much to my family, whose love and support have made all my work possible.
—Zhengyu Liu, Ohio State University, Columbus
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Early Career Award
Citation
Dr. Mark J. Lara is receiving AGU’s Global Environmental Change Early Career Award “for advancing knowledge of the causes and consequences of past and projected global carbon climate feedbacks from thawing permafrost.” Dr. Lara is a first-generation Hispanic scientist who has sought interdisciplinary, creative, and novel research avenues to advance the frontiers of Arctic and boreal ecosystem dynamics and has achieved remarkable success early in his career. Since joining the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Dr. Lara has integrated all his prior training, experience, and interdisciplinary perspectives into developing a world‐class research program at the frontiers of ecosystem and disturbance ecology. His global climate and environmental change research combines insights and methods taken from plant ecology, biogeochemistry, remote sensing, machine learning, and process-based modeling to address big questions regarding the complex interrelationships governing the fate of carbon and energy dynamics across permafrost landscapes. His scientific innovations have been on full display over the past few years as he uncovered new insights into elusive climate and wildfire impacts on permafrost landscapes. Lara has been especially active among the research community involved in terrestrial remote sensing, as he uses past observations to project future patterns of permafrost landscape change—essential information needed to advance next-generation terrestrial and Earth system models. For example, recent high-impact publications from Lara’s UIUC lab have leveraged remote sensing AI machine learning models to predict, with remarkable accuracy, spatial and temporal patterns of (1) the magnitude of permafrost degradation associated with varying degrees of wildfire frequency and severity, (2) the rate of shrub expansion in tundra regions experiencing rapid changes in climate and environmental conditions, and (3) catastrophic and gradual lake drainage processes. He has partnered with scientists at Sandia National Laboratories to integrate select wildfire-permafrost interactions into physics-based process-based biogeochemistry models. He has also fostered fruitful national and international collaborations across AGU permafrost science communities and beyond, including the Permafrost Carbon Network, the International Tundra Experiments, and the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments. Given this background and evidence, we can confidently expect Lara’s current research in high-latitude environmental change to lead to significant advances in next-generation Earth system models as he continues to make strides toward advancing knowledge of the causes and consequences of past and projected nonlinear global carbon climate feedbacks from thawing permafrost. These are some of the reasons that make him a worthy winner of AGU’s Global Environmental Change Early Career Award.
—Murugesu Sivapalan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana
Response
I am truly humbled by this prestigious recognition. I absolutely love what I do and consider it a great privilege to contribute small pieces to our collective understanding of the puzzle that is the Arctic system. Though awards are not necessary, I am appreciative of AGU Honors for this recognition.
I would like to thank Murugesu Sivapalan (aka Siva) for the wonderful citation, and both Siva and Bruce Rhodes for initially approaching me with the idea that such an award may be possible. I also thank the letter writers, the Global Environmental Change Award committee, and all those who actively cultivate the growth of aspiring early-career scientists. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife and children, Melissa, Evie, and Sarah, for their constant support, while simultaneously apologizing for the time we are forced apart (physically and mentally) for the sake of the data!
“Alone you will go fast, together you will go far.” This old adage applies to the new world of collaborative scientific research my program tries to cultivate, which was adopted from the collegial nature of the greater terrestrial Arctic science community. I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to engage with some of the brightest minds in Arctic ecology, and I am eternally thankful for their mentorship, friendship, and collegiality. In concert with this vibrant ecological community, to meet the challenge of such rapid global environmental change, my lab looks forward to contributing to efforts that will improve our understanding of the potential impacts of global climate change on permafrost ecosystems and beyond.
—Mark J. Lara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana
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Early Career Award
Citation
Dr. Sean Michaletz was selected to receive the 2022 AGU Global Environmental Change Early Career Award for his original, synthetic research linking environmental variation to plant physiology across scales, from leaves to the biosphere. Dr. Michaletz is an assistant professor in the Department of Botany and the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia. His research lies at the nexus of the physical and life sciences and combines interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as physics, engineering, geoscience, plant physiology, and ecology. His research involves development of mechanistic theory and models, which are parameterized, tested, and refined using data from the laboratory and the field. He also conducts long-term monitoring of climate, ecophysiology, and vegetation dynamics in a growing network of Forest MacroSystems sites located around the world.
Here I highlight three areas in which Dr. Michaletz’s contributions have been especially impactful: (1) Leaf temperatures, traits, and rates: Dr. Michaletz synthesized energy budget and carbon economics theories to link climate, functional traits, and photosynthetic rates and help understand the implications of traits for leaf thermal behavior and carbon economics. His contributions drove a resurgence of interest in energy budgets, which were prominent in ecophysiology from the 1960s to 1980s but had come to be seen as old hat by some. (2) Drivers of plant and ecosystem functioning: In a series of papers, Dr. Michaletz extended metabolic scaling theory to mathematically formalize competing hypotheses for drivers of net primary production (NPP) and test the hypotheses using the largest global data set compiled to date. He showed that conventional understanding of climate-NPP relationships was based on spurious relationships and that climate has a primarily indirect influence on NPP. (3) Fire effects on vegetation: Dr. Michaletz’s research on the physical mechanisms linking fire behavior to whole-plant physiology helped set an agenda that has guided research for over a decade. His modeling studies showed how plant traits mediate heat transfer and physiological injuries in vegetation during fires, and his experimental work demonstrated how heat impairs the hydraulic functioning of plant vascular tissues.
Dr. Michaletz is a rising star in global change science. Given his enormous contributions to understanding plant-environment interactions, and for their influence on the field, we are proud to recognize Dr. Michaletz with this honor.
—Mary O’Connor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Response
I am thrilled to receive the AGU Global Environmental Change Early Career Award. Thank you, Mary, for your nomination and your kind words. It is an honor to have been nominated by you. Your own contributions to global environmental change have long inspired my work, and your mentorship over the past several years has been invaluable as I’ve developed my career at the University of British Columbia.
I would also like to thank some of the mentors and collaborators I’ve been fortunate to work with over the years. Brian Enquist, Ed Johnson, Nate McDowell, and Peter Reich were formal mentors who showed me how to combine observation, experiment, theory, and modeling to tackle big questions by distilling the complexity of nature into a set of relatively simple causal mechanisms. Jim Brown, Drew Kerkhoff, Colin Prentice, Mel Tyree, Vigdis Vandvik, and Dick Waring have long been sources of inspiration, encouragement, and support. Luiza Aparecido, Adam Atchley, Benjamin Blonder, Vanessa Buzzard, Aud Halbritter, Kevin Hultine, Marc Macias Fauria, Brian Maitner, Stephanie Pau, and Martijn Slot have been important collaborators who helped shape the core of my current research program.
I must also thank the students and postdocs from my lab group, who continue to push the boundaries of my interests and understanding: Nicole Bison, Isaac Borrego, Lachlan Byrnes, Marcella Cross, Hugo Galvão Cândido, Josef Garen, Elizabeth Kleynhans, Raquel Partelli Feltrin, Timothy Perez, and Milos Simovic.
I would also like to acknowledge David Gates, whose pioneering work led to what we now know as ecophysiology, Earth system science, and remote sensing. All of my research builds upon his approaches.
And finally, thank you to the AGU Global Environmental Change section for highlighting and promoting excellence in research in global environmental change through this award. I am honored to receive the recognition, and I look forward to many more years of participation with the section and with AGU.
—Sean Michaletz, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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Change Early Career Award
Citation
Dr. Anna Trugman specializes in dynamic vegetation modeling, ecophysiology, and vegetation data science, all with a strong focus on how vegetation is impacted by, and impacts, climate change. She uses a hierarchy of mechanistic models to investigate a suite of processes that are poorly represented in current Earth system models. Much of our understanding of the ecological impacts of climate change, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilization, increased temperatures, and changing vapor pressure deficits, is dependent on models. She tackles critical uncertainties in these models through the development of mechanistic representations of plant function that better fit ecological theory and refine the complex interactions between components of the Earth system. Her work is informed by extensive observational data, which she strategically uses to improve model representations. She delves deeply into the physiology of plant hydraulics, and its representation. She found that in nine common Earth system models, uncertainty in parameterization of plant water stress based on soil moisture represented a large, uncertain component in the carbon cycle comparable in magnitude to total annual gross primary production. To address this model uncertainty, she developed a new theory that better accounts for observed patterns in drought-induced tree mortality, in which catastrophic mortality may lag the initial drought by as much as a decade. Working with an extensive plant physiological trait database and forest inventory data, she could explain the observed shifts in plant communities toward more drought tolerant traits. Her work has greatly improved our understanding of linkages between drought, vegetation health, and mortality, which is leading to improvements in the next generation of Earth system models and predictions of how climate change will alter the composition of future forests. For these reasons, she is well deserving of the AGU Global Environmental Change Early Career Award.
—Dar Roberts and Oliver Chadwick, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara
Response
Thank you, Dar and Oliver, for nominating me and for your continual support. I am honored to receive the Global Environmental Change Early Career Award. This award would not have been possible without members of my research group, collaborators, research mentors, and the support of my department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
I am fortunate to have been mentored, inspired, and supported by many people in my scientific career, starting with my parents. In particular, that I had to look no further than my mother to see a strong female scientist role model was truly a gift that provided me with an emboldened perspective of women in science and engineering from a very young age. Bill Anderegg has provided me with extensive mentorship and support since graduate school and greatly influenced not only my scientific approach, but also my writing and communication style. I am grateful to Stephen Pacala, David Medvigy, Kelly Caylor, Dar Roberts, and Jennifer King for their mentorship at key stages in my career thus far. My colleagues Leander Anderegg, Holly Moeller, and Megan Bartlett inspire me to be a better scientist and mentor every day. I have also had the privilege to collaborate with amazing graduate students and postdocs, including Greg Quetin, Kris Daum, Jean Allen, Evan Margiotta, Chris Kibler, Conor McMahon, and Justin Mathias. Finally, I want to thank my husband, Curt, for his love and support.
—Anna T. Trugman, University of California, Santa Barbara
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Early Career Award
Citation
Through her innovative investigations of environmental, economic, and social drivers of sustainable agriculture, metrics that quantify sustainability, and in-depth nutrient budget analyses, Xin Zhang has moved the discussion on sustainable agriculture. Her seminal 2015 paper in Nature, cited nearly a thousand times, is the most comprehensive and insightful analysis of national and global trends in agricultural nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). It demonstrates how variation of per capita gross domestic product, fertilizer-crop price ratios, and national crop mixes affect NUE among countries and over time and how these trends affect associated N surpluses that lead to air and water pollution. Her students’ analysis of phosphorus use efficiency is in press. Xin also led an in-depth analysis of global N budgets, skillfully coordinating cooperation of 10 prominent international research groups to explore the causes of discrepancies among their N budget data. A resulting benchmark data set will serve future model intercomparisons so that differences due to model structure can be distinguished from differences in their input data. Xin led an overview of the state of N budget science commissioned for an AGU Centennial review in Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Xin’s most challenging and innovative work yet is her Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM). Sustainability has been difficult to define and quantify, especially in agriculture, and yet it is crucial for food security, economic prosperity, and environmental quality. Xin made into a reality the conceptual idea of renowned agronomist M. S. Swaminanthan for a matrix of quantitative indicators of agricultural sustainability. Leading a team of international experts from agronomy, ecology, economics, and social science and from academia, government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector, she published SAM 1.0 as a policy-relevant tool of quantitative indicators (SAM 2.0 is in the works), which moves the discussion from a one-dimensional focus on increasing yields toward coordinated thinking and actions among social, economic, and environmental dimensions of agriculture. It enables policymakers to visualize their countries’ historical trajectories of progress toward sustainability goals and to examine trade-offs and synergies among environmental and socioeconomic consequences. Recognizing her impact on the field, Xin serves on several international advisory panels and is a frequent keynote speaker. Xin’s research addresses a crucial global issue facing the world today, namely, how to make agriculture sustainable as global population grows, while maximizing yields on limited land and minimizing associated environmental impacts. These crucial contemporary issues will only grow in importance, and Xin Zhang is helping illuminate a pathway to sustainable solutions.
—Eric A. Davidson, Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg
Response
Thank you, Eric and colleagues, for the nomination and for your kind words in the citation. I am truly honored and humbled to receive the AGU Global Environmental Change Early Career Award.
I would like to take this opportunity to share the honor and joy with all my mentors, colleagues, and students. I am truly proud of what we have achieved together, and I am looking forward to continuing our team efforts in the years to come.
I am particularly thankful to have great mentors guiding and supporting me as I am finding my path to fulfill a passion for environmental conservation and sustainable development. I am especially grateful to Prof. C. S. Kiang, who has had a profound influence on me with his global vision and incessant passion for positive solutions. I greatly appreciate my Ph.D. adviser, Prof. Xuhui Lee, who sharpened my skills in critical thinking and data analysis while allowing me to venture out and experience different roles in organizations such as the United Nations. My postdoc adviser, Prof. Denise Mauzerell, really enabled me to become more confident and comfortable as a female scientist working in interdisciplinary settings. I am also very fortunate to work with Prof. Eric Davidson, who, with his day-to-day practice, demonstrates how to be an inspiring mentor, visionary leader, effective collaborator, and thoughtful friend.
I would like to thank the students and postdocs in my lab, especially Tan Zou, Srishti Vishwakarma, Guolin Yao, and Jing Zhao. Thank you for putting your trust in me as your adviser and working with me tirelessly over the past years. My growth as an independent researcher has also greatly benefited from the collaborative environment and great colleagues at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Finally, I am beyond grateful to my husband and parents for their unconditional love and support.
The world is facing unprecedented environmental and societal challenges, and much hope has been placed on the agricultural sector to sustain the food supply and offer climate solutions (e.g., biofuel and soil carbon sequestration). However, the immense expectation for agriculture has not been matched with the necessary level of support in terms of talent and resources. Meeting this expectation has been further challenged by more frequent extreme weather events, political instability, high input prices, an aging agricultural community, and more. I sincerely hope that we can continue to work across the boundaries of disciplines, sectors, and nations; raise the awareness of agricultural sustainability challenges; and attract more young and creative minds to reshape the agriculture-food system in a more sustainable manner.
—Xin Zhang, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg
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Change Mid-Career Award
Citation
It has been a true pleasure to observe the remarkable scientific career of Prof. Chiyuan Miao from his graduate student days to the present. Chiyuan has been a rising star in the field of hydroclimatology and notably by bridging traditional hydrological science and the emerging global climate change science to address critical water resource issues in China and across the world. What makes Chiyuan stand out as a hydroclimate scientist is his devotion to seeking answers to some fundamental questions, such as (1) whether the current hydroclimatological data sets are reliable for answering critical questions water resources system operators and decisionmakers are confronted with every day, (2) how hydroclimatological variables respond to historical global environmental change, and (3) how hydroclimatological processes will change in the context of future global environmental change.
Dr. Miao has conducted a series of systematic studies to examine the accuracy and uncertainty of hydroclimatological data sets in China and many other regions of the world. To this end, he has constructed a high-resolution hydroclimatological data set by applying the merging technique to multisource data sets, which lays the foundation for understanding environmental change and its impact. Chiyuan has developed innovative methods (e.g., automatic optimization, parameter regionalization, adaptive surrogate modeling) to simulate the hydrological processes within a finer spatial resolution. His work has played an important role in the development of national water conservancy projects across China and beyond in responding to ongoing environmental change around the world. He has broadened his research direction to unravel the quantitative contributions of natural forces and human activities to future environment change and the resulting hydrometeorological responses, a right step in helping the development of strategies for energy conservation and emissions reductions, especially in China.
Dr. Miao has also been playing an active role in the Earth sciences community and professional societies including AGU. He was selected as cochair of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation Youth Committee and is now serving as an editor for the AGU journal GeoHealth. He is a very active member of several professional societies in China, such as the Hydrogeography section of the Geographical Society of China, the Resources Ecosystem section of the Chinese Natural Resources Society, and the Geography Youth Forum.
My congratulations to Dr. Miao for receiving the 2022 Piers J. Sellers Global Environmental Change Mid-Career Award from AGU.
—Soroosh Sorooshian, University of California, Irvine
Response
It is the honor of my lifetime to be recognized by the AGU community and to receive the Piers J. Sellers Global Environmental Change Mid-Career Award. The global environmental changes we are experiencing have brought great hydroclimatological challenges to mankind, and the related research will help us to make appropriate responses. I have been so fortunate to work on and benefit from this fascinating science.
Thank you very much, Prof. Sorooshian, for your kind nomination! I clearly remember that when I was working at the University of California, Irvine Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing (UCI CHRS) as a visiting scholar, Soroosh asked me every day when we met, “Hi, Miao, what’s new?” To be honest, I usually felt nervous because there were still several bugs in my codes yesterday. Now I can be very proud to answer, “I got an award from AGU!” Thanks, Soroosh, for continuously encouraging me to explore the new, as well as for your persistent support for my career. I really enjoyed my time at UCI CHRS and deeply appreciate all my collaborators there, including but not limited to Amir AghaKouchak, Kuo-lin Hsu, Hamed Ashouri, Phu Nguyen, Nasrin Nasrollahi, and Tiantian Yang.
I would not be where I am today without the support of my mentors, colleagues, and collaborators. My deepest gratitude goes to my Ph.D. adviser, Baoyuan Liu, who led me to hydrological science and I, for the first time, experienced the charm of scientific research. I was incredibly lucky to work with Jinren Ni as a postdoctoral fellow. I learned the precious qualities of persistence, independence, and self-confidence in research from his words and deeds. Joining Qingyun Duan’s group at Beijing Normal University as a faculty member was a life-changing and exciting experience. Qingyun guided me to the field of hydroclimatology, which I am determined to devote my life to, and always gives me valuable advice on my research and career whenever I need it.
I am also indebted to my current and former graduate students and postdocs, who have been so inspiring to work with. I appreciate their hard work and dedication with all my heart. It is a great pleasure of mine to work with them, and I’m here to receive this award also on their behalf.
Finally, my gratitude also goes to my wife, Yang Yang, my children, Keyan and Zhiyang, and my parents for their tremendous support and encouragement. Without them, my life would be far less meaningful.
—Chiyuan Miao, Beijing Normal University, Beijing
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Change Mid-Career Award
Citation
Dr. Rodrigo Vargas has made significant contributions to the developing field of environmental cyberinfrastructure and global environmental change. Indeed, he helped to pioneer the use of time series analysis to study soil carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes, one of the major pathways in the global carbon cycle. Rodrigo’s background in ecology and carbon cycle biogeochemistry, and his fundamental contributions to the use of environmental sensor networks and sensor technology related to climate change research, along with his extensive analytical skill set, have made him an international leader in the impacts of climate change on ecosystem carbon budgets. This is clearly demonstrated by his recent recognition as a Highly Cited Researcher by the Web of Science. Furthermore, he contributes to policy-relevant research through participation in international climate assessments. Finally, Rodrigo is deeply committed to improving diversity, equity, and inclusion in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Surprisingly, he is the only Hispanic faculty member in the past 150 years in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware, where he was recently promoted to the rank of professor. In this role he has strongly advocated for the needs of the Latinx community for which he has been awarded the Latino/Hispanic Heritage Impact Award and the Mentorship/Advancement Award for Latino/Hispanic Graduate Students. Finally, Rodrigo is an active member of the AGU community serving as an associate editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences among many other activities.
—Scott Collins, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Response
It has been a privilege and an honor to have had the opportunity to work on scientific, educational, and social endeavors in global environmental change. It is an honor to receive the 2022 Piers J. Sellers Global Environmental Change Mid-Career Award.
Piers Sellers’s work and leadership have touched and influenced many scientists, and his legacy will continue to be remembered in the years to come. It is amazing to be among the prestigious list of previous awardees.
I am deeply grateful to Scott Collins for nominating me and believing in me since I was a graduate student. Thank you, Scott!
My career as a scientist would not have been possible without the support of many mentors, colleagues, students, and friends. My first mentor as an undergraduate was Eberto Novelo, who introduced me to the study of biogeochemical cycles. I thank my Ph.D. adviser, Michael Allen, who gave me the freedom to pursue my interests and taught me about soil-plant-atmosphere interactions. Then, my postdoc adviser, Dennis Baldocchi, taught me about eddy covariance, the importance of synthesis of information, and the power of global environmental networks. I am also grateful for the opportunity to be a member of FLUXNET, AmeriFlux, MexFlux, and the North American Carbon Program communities. I have had the privilege to work with fantastic students, early-career scientists, and colleagues around the world with whom I share this honor.
This recognition means a lot to me as a member of the Latinx/Hispanic community of AGU. With this visibility comes great responsibility. I am inspired to continue to support members of historically marginalized populations so they can thrive, lead, and advance scientific endeavors related to global environmental change.
I am thankful to Scott, my mentors, colleagues, students, and friends who have been with me throughout my career. I am grateful for all the love and support from my family. I thank the Global Environmental Change section for honoring me with the 2022 Piers J. Sellers Global Environmental Change Mid-Career Award.
—Rodrigo Vargas, University of Delaware, Newark
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Change Lecture
