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

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