Search Interviews

Mara Jill Herman (Astoria) interviews her mom Emmi S. Herman (Searingtown) on Mother's Day, 5.9.2021. They chat about community, collaboration, vaccine awareness, and legacy.

Kim Cobb loves being out in the field. She talks about the euphoria and passion she has for it, saying “It's like nothing I've ever experienced literally, and I've given birth to four children.” In this interview, she talks about...

Elizabeth Schaeffer hasn’t followed the most straight-forward route into the geosciences but that’s allowed her to discover the field she most wants to study. She’s a non-traditional undergraduate studying applied geology and talks about recent internships she’s done that have...

Linda Geiser and Peter Nelson tell their own stories and reflect on the impact they’ve had on each other lives. They’re both currently with the US Forest Service but first met when Linda hired Peter after he finished university to...

Erin Robinson is the Executive Director of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP). She knew from early on that she was interested in science and her field of remote sensing, from good science teachers in middle and high school to...

Erica Bickford’s advice to early career scientists or students is to look outside academia and explore all the potential career options available to scientists. She is particularly aware of the importance of science in daily life and in the policy...

Michelle Newcomer is now a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab but her first degree was in French and Sociology. She talks here about the fear that comes with changing careers, taking risks, and pursuing the path that you...

Kiya Riverman ended up studying glaciers because, on a field work trip, she was one of the few who could fit the ice cave in the glacier. She recalls, “you're surrounded by glaciers and then sometimes you're underneath glaciers. And...

Michele Koppes and Heidi Roop met “on an incredible landscape on the edge of the Greenland ice sheet about two years ago.” The conversation that followed made both of them think more closely about the value of science communication and...

Michael Wong is just as comfortable talking about science as he is with working on it. Currently a post doc at the University of Washington in Seattle, he talks about his work and path through science, from being inspired as...

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...

Shelby Hurst grew up in northern Michigan where she spent plenty of time poking at and asking questions about the rocks in her grandparents’ backyard, which eventually led her to a PhD in geochemistry. She discusses the importance of women...

Susan Bates has always been interested by the physical world and especially the ocean. She remembers standing on the beach as a kid in North Carolina wondering where the waves came from. Now, she gets to predict what the ocean...

Rosaly Lopes is a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. She discovered seventy-one new volcanoes on IO, for which she was recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records. She uses her research into the surface of other planets...

Sarah Vines and Robert Allen once drove twenty hours to see a spaceship launch. Now, Sarah and Robert are married, post-doctoral students working in the laboratories of Johns Hopkins University. Sarah researches how magnetic fields form, and what earth’s magnetic...

Emily Wolin is almost singe-handedly trying to upgrade Myanmar’s national seismic network. As a student, Emily saw the Mount Saint Helens eruption. Today, she helps scientists in Myanmar prepare their country for the aftermath of the next hurricanes to come...

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...

“What is the earth saying to us?” Jackie Caplan-Auerbach is a volcano seismologist with the Western Washington University geology department. Jackie studies ice avalanches, which can happen at any time. Most ice landslides do not give warnings, but some do....

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...

Why do people feel they way they do about issues? Why do lawmakers and policy leaders seemingly act against their better interests? And how can information be developed in a way that leads not just to greater understanding, but to...

On the football field, Bob Swap learned to read the field, look at the play, assess the information, and move forward. Today, those same skills help him manage over 250 scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center with NASA’s Pandora...

How did Biogeoscience become a recognized field of study, with its own journal and sections at AGU? What obstacles did its organizers have to overcome in order to make it a viable field and a welcome presence at AGU? In...

Jonathan Bamber has always loved to climb mountains. It’s why, when he wrote an essay about ice crystal formation in clouds as an 18-year-old undergrad, he found his calling studying glaciers and the natural environment. He’s traveled the world as...

Amber Soja’s career is on fire. The resident at NASA’s Langley Research Center studies fire regimes and how they are being affected by climate change. “Every fire season is worse,” she says, adding that the changing fire regime is proof...

Kristin Lawrence is reimagining how children of all ages can learn and discover science. She is the CEO and Founder of The Hopper, a science discovery playground coming soon to Boulder, Colorado. Kristin changed direction from a career in paleomagnetism...