Reflections and Thoughts on the Future of Science From AGU Hydrology Section Fellows

Abstract

At the inaugural Frontiers in Hydrology Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the summer of 2022, the Hydrology Section organized a poster session and invited our 2020 and 2021 Classes of AGU Fellows, with the initial goal of both celebrating their careers as well as to provide an opportunity for an informal exchange and connection between the section's early career members and our more senior and established scientists and engineers. Due to the challenges of time zones, virtual poster presentations and other logistics, the formal poster session was adjourned but continued as a hybrid “meet‐up” with six of our Section's Fellows (Suzanne Anderson, Paul Brooks, Aaron Packman, Remko Uijlenhoet, Andrew Western, and Xubin Zeng) from around the world. As you will see, what started as an informal chat quickly took deep dives into pressing issues in our section and science in general, including thoughts on how our community values (or in some cases doesn't value) multi‐ and interdisciplinary accomplishments, critiques of our system of rewards and awards including how we assess publication impacts and finally, a frank and honest discussion of our current efforts to diversify our community and where/why are we still failing. We hope that by sharing this open and impromptu dialogue that these discussions can expand to our entire community, and to encourage future Fellows exchanges such as this to reach our entire community of scientists and engineers.