Posts in: Leadership in Action

Originally published in Federation of American Scientists In an environment where fire seasons are turning to fire years, and summer skies across North America are filled with wildfire smoke from as far away as another coast, the need for scientifically accurate wildland fire policy has never been greater. Over the past several months, COMPASS Science Communi...

While environmental regulations and policies are often fragmented across geographical, political, and social borders, environmental risks and impacts are transboundary. To fully address this paradox, science needs to reach across borders too. Wilburforce Leaders, Erin Sexton, Chris Sergeant, and Jonathan Moore, are doing just that. Chris and Erin are both res...

Science can have the greatest impact when scientists engage beyond the lab and field and build meaningful connections with the people who can most benefit from their work. But the path to connection isn't always clear or straightforward. What if there are existing challenges and tensions between different groups? How do we keep conversations from becoming polarized...

It is routinely said that the head wearing the crown is uneasy, heavy. While I do not think Shakespeare had my curly Afro in mind, I know its meaning well. The weight of this crown regularly threatens to drown me. My trajectory to becoming an emergent leader in STEM fighting for change has been nothing short of amazing. My timing may be one of the luckier ones beca...

Shanice Bailey is a third-year graduate student at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in the Ocean Transport Group, where she studies Antarctic bottom water, the deepest and oldest water mass in the world. Shanice also is collaborating with others to develop an afterschool curriculum for high school students that teaches them how to code using...

Dr. Dawn Wright is Chief Scientist at Esri, and a former COMPASS board member. Dawn is a globally recognized expert in marine geographic information systems and is also known as ‘Deepsea Dawn’ for her adventures underwater. Dawn is also the first Black woman to explore the ocean floor in the submersible ALVIN. After a major career transition, Dawn wrote ‘The ...