Connecting science and society: A conversation with AGCI’s Julie Vano

Dr. Julie Vano, AGCI’s Research Director, has been active in the leadership of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Science and Society section for the last six years. Recently, Julie sat down with AGCI’s Communications Manager, Liz Carver, to reflect on the experience.

Liz Carver: What is the AGU Science and Society section and what does it do?

Julie Vano: AGU is a professional society for Earth and space scientists with about 60,000 members around the world. The Science and Society section is one of 25 sections within AGU (American Geophysical Union), which supports the advancement of Earth and space science. More specifically, the Science and Society section supports the work of those making connections between science and society stronger. It’s looking for ways to innovate, to enable the work of Earth sciences to have a real benefit to humanity. 

LC: Who joins the section? 

JV: Science and Society is meant to be a homeroom of sorts for people who want their science to connect with society in ways that are meaningful and can help work toward solutions. I think there are a lot of younger scientists that are really, really excited about doing research that has a tangible, real-world impact. There’s people that study hydrology, that study atmospheric sciences, that study various other Earth science disciplines — people whose scholarship helps facilitate interaction with society in ways that can be really helpful to decision-making. There’s also people whose scholarship is understanding science communication, understanding social and behavioral sciences, understanding science policy, community science, citizen science, art and science. All those people are in that intersecting space between science and society, and the section can be their professional home within the AGU.

LC: What was your role in the Science and Society section?

JV: I’ve been involved with the section in a leadership capacity for the last six years: two years as the president-elect, two years as the president, and then two years as the past president. The last two years, I’ve been on the leadership team, supporting the section.

I’m a hydrologist. I’ve always loved doing science, but I wanted to make sure the questions that I was asking were really working toward solutions that society needs. And this meant doing more engagement and working closely with social scientists. How do you make sure your science is applicable and useful to people who are in the decision-making space? How do you make sure it’s answering some of the important questions that decision-makers have, and providing that information in a way they can then employ? When I started doing this, I really felt like an odd duck, but there were increasingly more and more people doing it, and that allowed us to start doing sessions together at AGU where we shared insights, and from that the momentum built.  

Before my tenure, there was a section within AGU called SIPS (Societal Impacts and Policy Sciences). We started convening sessions within that section, and that’s part of the reason I got asked to run for section president. When I came in, many people were asking what is SIPS? Could we call it something else? We went through a pretty large effort to see if we could rename the section. We did a survey of people who were engaged in the section and proposed different names. We decided Science and Society fit really well, and used insights from the renaming effort to create five different tracks within the section to serve the various communities I’ve mentioned, like art and science, and social and behavioral sciences. 

LC: What were your top priorities for the section during your leadership tenure?

JV: I wanted to create a space for people interested in that intersecting space between science and society because I feel there’s such a huge benefit in the Earth sciences having people who are not only doing the physical science, but are doing the social science, who are doing the art, who are doing the policy work that is required to be that connector. I wanted us to provide a space for them to be engaged and be in conversation with people who are doing the physical science. I think it’s really important to make sure that the work we do is relevant to the decisions that are being made by water managers or by city planners or by people who deal with hazards, and so on. This is reflected in the section’s statement of purpose, which we wrote in 2019.

“I feel like I have been riding this tidal wave of interest in making our science more actionable, and I got to help provide the space for that to happen.”

–Julie Vano

LC: How did the section evolve during your tenure? 

JV: There were several events that happened during my tenure that I think helped propel the section forward. The section became more integrated into AGU’s strategic thinking through our work on a new AGU strategic plan in 2020. Getting to be a part of those conversations was significant in that the time was right for us to make the pitch that AGU was moving in this direction, and it would be great if we could call our section Science and Society. Then there was the centennial celebrating 100 years of AGU being a professional society. And there was also COVID and having to migrate all of our work online and switching to our first remote meeting ever — one of the largest virtual science conferences in the world. Then there was experimenting with a hybrid model. And then moving back to being in person. 

But throughout all of these significant events, the Science and Society section gained momentum and gained membership and became stronger, I would say. There was just this energy of people really wanting their science to have a connection with society, that I think we moved a bit more into the mainstream of AGU throughout that period. It’s exciting. I feel like I have been riding this tidal wave of interest in making our science more actionable, and I got to help provide the space for that to happen as a leader in the section, alongside other amazing leaders in the section.

LC: What achievement are you proudest of during your leadership tenure?

JV:  I think it has been what has happened in the last two years, when I became past president, which meant I was part of supporting the team and just getting a chance to watch the section continue to grow and thrive, bringing in new and better ideas and new ways of engaging.  I am proud to say I was a part of building the team to allow that to happen. 

LC: And what do you see as key opportunities and/or challenges for the section moving forward? 

JV: There’s so much good energy around people wanting their science to be more actionable. And I think AGU is a great place where ideas can spread. And so I find it very exciting for the section to continue to provide the space for those conversations to happen and for people to meet each other and realize they can be a part of doing work that engages society. There’s certainly challenges, and talking about some of the challenges is also important. For example, what are the institutional barriers to doing work that is in a more engaged space? With our traditional systems of rewards, recognition is often challenging, funding isn’t always there to support the time and effort required to do engaged research. And that can be problematic, especially when people earlier in their careers want to do this sort of work.

That said, I think one of the nice things about the section is that we’ve been able to work collectively to overcome some of those challenges. One big example, and this is something that happened during my tenure, was we created a Science and Society team award that allows us to highlight people who are doing team science in a way that hopefully can give some recognition to people who are doing this kind of engaged work. Nominate a notable team today!