As the recipient of the 2022 Ocean Sciences Early Career Award, Samantha Stevenson is recognized for her uniquely diverse and substantive contributions to climate and ocean science. Working at the frontiers of several fast growing and highly interdisciplinary subfields of climate science, Sam has honed a tool kit that combines well-established methods and approaches with those that she has evolved through her research. Much of her work has focused on tropical climate variability, specifically the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), dating her to the earliest papers highlighting the challenges of detecting anthropogenic shifts in ENSO properties. Long an advocate of leveraging paleoclimate data and approaches in climate research, Sam’s research accomplishments amount to a master class in the creative and strategic application of paleoclimate assets to the most challenging questions in climate science. Indeed, Sam is a shining example of a certain breed of scientist: one who dreams big, and then chips away at a problem from multiple angles until measurable progress is achieved. She is equally fluent in the more technical aspects of model development, advanced statistical techniques, and paleoclimate data interpretation. Perhaps not surprisingly, her papers are uniquely well rounded presentations of her findings, packaged with a clarity and comprehensiveness that make them relevant to the vast majority of the climate community, from oceanographers to Earth system modelers to paleoclimatologists. Working on regional to global scales, and from seasonal to millennial timescales, Sam has displayed remarkable versatility in her ability to deliver new insights about tropical climate and its role in the global climate system. She has been, and continues to be, a treasured member of several large teams of interdisciplinary researchers, and her early successes in mentoring the next generation of scientists are already apparent. Intellectually fearless, Sam is asking all the right questions and is succeeding where many a scientist has failed. Through the rigor and breadth of her vast research activities and accomplishments, she has already left an indelible mark on her chosen subfield. By contributing fundamental advances to our understanding of tropical climate dynamics, Sam has delivered unique and lasting benefits to society. —Kim Cobb, Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, and Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, R.I.

Thank you, Kim, for the citation, and thanks as well to my letter writers and to the AGU Ocean Sciences section. I am extremely excited to receive this award and to follow in the footsteps of the previous award recipients. The most exciting questions to me have always been those relating to the future of ocean and climate variability, in a world that continues to experience significant human-induced warming. To address these issues requires understanding not only the physics of ocean processes, but also their coupled interactions with the atmosphere, the limitations of the modeling techniques we use to represent ocean and climate variations, and the constraints associated with using limited observational and paleoclimate records to validate simulated climate variations. Because I always saw each of those aspects of the problem as equally valuable, I was never able to choose just one to focus on: I have been very fortunate to have had advisers and close collaborators who supported my sometimes initially scattered ideas and helped me focus them into what has now become a cohesive research program. I will always be grateful to my Ph.D. adviser, Baylor Fox-Kemper, for his unfailing support and excellent advice about both research and life in academia; my postdoctoral adviser, Brian Powell, for taking a chance on my harebrained research schemes; and all my wonderful colleagues, including Bette Otto-Bliesner, John Fasullo, Kim Cobb, Manu Di Lorenzo, Matt Newman, Antonietta Capotondi, Julie Cole, and many others who have provided their insightful feedback and support over the years. I got into oceanography because I wanted the chance to learn more about how our planet works, while creating knowledge that would benefit humanity in the face of climate change. I’ve been lucky enough to get to do this while working with incredible colleagues, and I’m looking forward to continuing to answer fundamental science questions to inform our preparations for climate change impacts over the coming years. —Samantha Stevenson, University of California, Santa Barbara