Hacking Atmospheric and Oceanographic Science

Question: What happens when one takes a twenty-year scientific campaign that is responsible for engaging over 60 individual BIPoC students in maritime field science with a research incubation program that is designed to reduce barriers to accessing research experiences? Answer: We do not know. But we would like to propose an effort to answer this question.   In 2006, the AERosols and Ocean Science Expeditions (AEROSE), and observational field campaign focused on Saharan Dust research joined scientists from the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) on their PIRATA Northeast Extension (PNE) mission. This was the beginning of what has now become a eighteen-year partnership.   AEROSE scientific outcomes have led the development of improved global modeling capabilities, improved reanalyses for climate in remote ocean regions and new satellite operational data products for water vapor imagery, improved sea surface temperature, space-based aerosol retrievals, and air quality forecasting boundary conditions.  The partnership has also been a model for inclusive science aboard Class 1 research vessels as it has sponsored immersive experiences for over 60 BIPoC students in active research leading to 20 student-authored and early career refereed publications and 30 student presentations at professional meetings. We now wonder how the PNE-AEROSE partnership might be leveraged to create a new type of program offering broader access to field studies at sea.  The talk will discuss our relationship, the positive outcomes, and how it might be twinned with a new program recently launched at Arizona State University that reduces barriers that students who are place-based, first-generation, have caregiving commitments, study online, or other life factors that exclude them from typical research traineeships.   The proposed presentation will describe this proposal, and its justification based on the proven benefits and successes of the AEROSE/PNE partnership and the Hacking Sustainability Summer Incubator program.  The latter program has been running for the past three years at Arizona State University and provided a hybridized (full immersion and online/virtual) onramp to scholarly pursuits for students whose lived experience (e.g. lack of class privilege, racialization, primary caregiving commitments, online status, first-generation challenges, belonging to working families, disability status, non-negotiable place attachment) precludes their participation in traditional research internship programs.   The HSSI program introduces concepts of sustainability, environmental justice, and critical approaches to complex environmental problems within a format aimed at i) cultivating individual scientific inquiry and ethical responsibility in research, ii) disrupting current knowledge politics, iii) empowering and encouraging historically excluded STEM talent for entry into the research enterprise.  The program is specifically designed with these populations in mind. 

Presentation Preference: Oral

Primary Presenter: Vernon Morris, Arizona State University (vmorris7@asu.edu)

Authors:

Rick Lumpkin, NOAA AOML  (rick.lumpkin@noaa.gov)

Renellys Perez, NOAA AOML  (renellys.c.perez@noaa.gov)

Gregory Foltz, NOAA AOML  (gregory.foltz@noaa.gov)

Mayra Oyola-Merced, University of Wisconsin Madison  (oyolamerced@wisc.edu)

Everette Joseph, NCAR  (ejoseph@ucar.edu)