Search Interviews

Ross Stein is CEO and Co-Founder of Temblor, Inc., Adjunct Professor at Stanford University, a scientist at the Unites States Geological Survey, creator of films about earthquake science, and president of the AGU’s tectonic physics section. In this interview, Margarete...

The potential downside of a career in always seeking discoveries is that it may stunt the development of your confidence. Even as someone who walked into NASA, living the dream in his mind, Nathan Kurtz experiences that downside, politely calling...

After one spends 50 years with the same organization, what’s next? That’s the question Dave Mao is attempting to answer after a highly-decorated career at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Born in Shangai and raised in Taiwan, Mao came to...

Scott Tyler, hydrology engineer at the University of Nevada Reno and AGU Hydrology section president, shares his work on Antarctic ice shelves, nuclear waste, and stream restoration. Do we need to build sea walls in ten years or in one...

Sandra Cauffman was told growing up in Costa Rica that she couldn’t be an electrical engineer because she was a woman. Decades into a career which has largely involved getting her hands dirty building instruments to fix on spacecraft, the...

Krystal Yhap’s interest in urban water resource management was sparked by the conversations around water safety in Flint, MI. She’s now a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland studying the water system in San Francisco. She talks about her...

Daniel Minguez, a geophysicist for Chevron, helps create new geologic models of the earth’s layers, trying “to build geologic stories for how different geologic elements got there.” Daniel discusses his work which focuses on boring techniques and navigating plate tectonics....

While many of the interviews at the conference were with experienced professionals with a career spanning several decades, this interview is with a young up-and-coming PhD student who traveled all the way from the Philippines to attend her first AGU...

David Young, Director of Science at NASA Langley Research Center, discusses his life's work studying the earth's climate. After an early interest in astrophysics, he focused in on earth science due to his desire to do research to help humans....

Padma Yanamandra-Fisher, a research scientist at the Space Science Institute, shares stories of her career in planetary science. She recounts how defining the launch of Voyager was and the significance of the growth in the field since. Padma shares her...

Michael Freilich, Director of NASA's Earth Science Division, shares about his life studying the oceans and Earth as a system. While still in his high school's oceanography club, he started exploring a question about how waves move that later became...

Seismologist Lucy Jones gained recognition for doing a TV interview following the 1992 Joshua Tree earthquake while holding her sleeping infant son. Long before that, she became one of the first American scientists to enter China after it’s normalization in...

William Putman, research meteorologist with NASA , was always fascinated by the way meteorologists on television could predict what was going to happen. But instead of comparing weather reports with the blowing of the trees outside his house, Putman now...

Chris Ballentine, University of Oxford, discusses his work as "helium hunter," seeking global reserves of Helium, significant as a natural resource-limited in its scope. Chris discusses geopolitics and the need for the market to drive the search for helium which...

In begin in 1979, when Margaret Kivelson, UCLA, was part one of three women presenting a talk in which Fran Bagenal, University of Colorado Boulder, was sitting in the audience. They have been space scientists and collaborators for many years...

Denise Hills, Director in Geological Survey of Alabama and AGU leader shares stories of her collaborative experiences and how it has shaped her career. She discusses the significance of the growth of science and the importance of communicating science to...

France Lagroix, Research Scientist at Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris and AGU Leader share stories of her passion and the value of paleomagnetism. She talks of the discovery during her Ph'd research where she developed a novel application...

We won’t say how long Susan Lozier has been shaping young minds at Duke University (she may let it slip), but she talks about amazing changes that have happened during her tenure. She grew up wondering how rivers get polluted,...

Roberta Rudnick, Professor at University of California Santa Barbara, was captivated by science from a young age, witnessing the Mt. Saint Helens eruption while in college, and traveling the globe to understand plate tectonics, and how and why continents form...

When Quinyan Duan was a student in China, he found his way into hydropower engineering. He wanted to pursue a graduate degree but couldn’t find the right professor to guide him. He took the difficult step of applying in the...

Rachel Hampton ended up in the geosciences because she couldn’t find the art history class she was looking for. From asking a TA if she could join him on fieldwork to doing her senior thesis on volcanoes without a professor...

Jeremy Werdell, an Oceanographer in the Ocean Ecology Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, discusses his lifelong passion for studying the ocean, which started with a school field trip to a marine biology lab. He describes how happening to...

Lawrence Friedl discusses his life and experiences as Director of the Applied Sciences Program in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters. Interested in space from a young age, he developed an interest in how the environment and public policy...

Emily Schaller, project manager at NASA's National Suborbital Research Center at Ames, discusses her Ph.D. work studying the clouds on Titan and her work as a science and education. She recalled how as a young child, she would study illustrations...

Jim Irons grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in Cleveland when environmental conservation was becoming more important for society, but it wasn’t until the Cuyahoga River in his hometown of Cleveland caught on fire in 1969 that his desire...