Social Responsibility in the Earth and Space Sciences: An Early-Career Perspective

Brief biography: Paige is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian National University/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where she works at the intersection of climate and data science. She is an elected early career member on the AGU Council, and was involved in the development of AGU's new strategic plan. In addition to her scientific roles, Paige is involved in many activities including musical theater and acrobatics. Social contribution of the earth and space sciences: The connection between the earth and space sciences and society is very important. Based on the results of several recent AGU and JpGU surveys, its clear that early career scientists are especially interested in research that meets the needs of society. This shift toward more socially responsible research is reflected in AGUs new strategic plan, that stresses the importance of solutions-based and transdisciplinary research approaches (in addition to discovery-based) and promoting a diverse and inclusive scientific culture, while also highlighting the importance of humility and partnering with other individuals and organizations. As an early career scientist, it is very apparent that to achieve these goals, the scientific community must update the reward and funding structures to reflect such societal and community-based efforts. In addition, the AGU strategic plan mentions the need for scientific knowledge creation to move from usable to used - a key factor in making our science beneficial for and actually implemented in our society. One such example of this from my own field is the support of open science practices, including open data access, open-source software development, open availability of scientific publications, etc. Such practices can help foster a more diverse and inclusive scientific workforce by removing barriers to specific tools or resources, and in return render the earth and space sciences a more welcoming and approachable environment, with the transparency to both maintain high-quality research and encourage greater public trust in the scientific community.