Dr. Perrone has quickly established an international reputation as an outstanding researcher in sustainable water resource management. Her diverse skill set in scientific, engineering, and policy aspects of hydrology has placed her on a trajectory to become a global leader in the management and protection of groundwater resources. Her excellent publication record includes articles in Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience, Nature Sustainability, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Science & Technology, and Environmental Research Letters covering such topics as groundwater depletion, unconventional oil and gas development, the food-water-energy nexus, and water law. These studies have often relied on big-data approaches, intricate spatial analyses, and thoughtful interpretation of what the results mean to policy and governance. Of note in these publications are a series of papers examining the extent of groundwater resources at depth and their relationship to where wells are drilled. Few other researchers have examined groundwater resources from this perspective. Dr. Perrone has demonstrated that wells are being drilled to increasing depths as water tables fall in many locations in the United States and around the world. This is an unsustainable practice because of deteriorating water quality at depth and has serious equity implications because of the cost of drilling deeper wells. Dr. Perrone has become a leading thinker on the topic of groundwater sustainability. She was a convener of the 2019 AGU Chapman Conference “Quest for Sustainability of Heavily Stressed Aquifers at Regional to Global Scales” and is cochair of three of six sessions at that meeting. The Global Groundwater Sustainability Statement, which included Dr. Perrone as part of the leadership team, was a product of this meeting. This statement has over 1,000 signatories from over 100 countries and was summarized in a correspondence to Nature that was coauthored by Dr. Perrone. This statement provides a framework to solve groundwater depletion issues, which is urgently needed to address security issues related to not only water but also energy and food. I expect that Dr. Debra Perrone will be a star performer for decades to come and is the type of researcher that the world needs to address the challenges of the 21st century. Her ability to think at large scales and work between disciplines is something that the world will need more of in the coming years. —Grant Ferguson, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

I am honored to be one of the recipients of the 2022 Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award. To be considered for this award, I needed the support of the many kind colleagues—Grant Ferguson, Tom Gleeson, Richard Taylor, and George Hornberger—who nominated me. Beyond my gratefulness for their support, I am thankful to each of them for inspiring me throughout my early career: to Grant for his genuine curiosity in hydrogeologic systems, Tom for his propensity to “think big,” Richard for his eloquent science communication, and George for his inclusive mentorship, which has provided the framework for how I have approached my academic career. My career goal has been to couple quantitative and qualitative data to illuminate the value of water and to highlight the inequities associated with those affected most by water scarcity. I started this journey as a first-generation college student traveling thousands of miles outside the country to a rural community without access to water, only to find years later that I could travel just tens of miles from where I live in California to find communities without access to water. It is for this reason that I share this award with my students, many of whom are also first-generation college students and passionate about finding solutions to today’s most prominent water challenges. A critical component of my research involves collaborations with scholars outside my trained disciplines of engineering or hydrology. For the past decade, I have been lucky to work with Bec Nelson, whose ability to piece together complex water law is nothing short of an academic superpower. I am indebted to Bec and all my other collaborators who have worked with me to merge our disciplines in valuable, yet uncomfortable, ways. I am grateful to be part of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where humanists, social scientists, physical scientists, and engineers have created an encouraging academic community to study the environment, especially for an early-career researcher. A critical component of my life is my family. To my partner, thank you for providing one of the most challenging types of support: encouraging me to say no so that I can fully engage and be present in my yeses. To my parents, thank you for providing me with opportunities not afforded to you. And to my brother, who is the reason why I studied engineering, thank you for your guidance and mentorship. —Debra Perrone, University of California, Santa Barbara