Message from the Chair—2024
Dear alumni and friends,
Welcome to the 2024-25 academic year! I am excited to write my first letter for the alumni magazine to the EAS community as the new Chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences here at Cornell. I may already have met many of you, as I have been a faculty member here in EAS for 17 years, but let me tell you a little about myself. I am trained as an atmospheric scientist, although my research has moved to thinking about the atmospheric feedbacks with other elements of the climate system, such as land and ocean biogeochemistry, and so now I term myself an Earth system scientist.
I teach and do research in the area of climate feedbacks, especially that involve aerosols or biogeochemistry. Before arriving, I had been in tenure-track positions at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I have served as Director of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies within the department, as well as Faculty Directory at Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. I am married to another professor at Cornell, and our two boys are undergrads currently at Cornell.
I am very excited to be chair of our department and help our faculty, staff and students reach their highest potential. The previous chairs, Geoff Abers and David Hysell oversaw almost a complete renewal of the faculty within the department. Almost half our faculty have been hired in the last 6 years. We have been hiring one or two faculty every year for the last few years, and will continue with two searches next year (oceanography and surface processes), but as Snee is filling up, our goal is shifting from bringing in new people, to integrating and creating synergies with the excellent faculty we have.
Our first task will be to revisit the curriculum, both educating the new faculty on existing classes and curriculum as well as creating new classes and curriculum for modern day earth and atmospheric scientists. We will also think about creating an engineering curriculum focused on the existing strengths within the department. In September we had two half-day teaching retreats to energize this process, and we’ll continue to discuss to improve the curriculum.
While we want to continue to teach and conduct research that is at the cutting edge in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, what “Earth and Atmospheric Sciences” means is shifting. Some of the shifts are in area, and allow us to bridge between our traditional Earth versus Atmospheric Sciences “sides” of the department. We now have several faculty working on important questions about the cryosphere, and how climate is interacting with ice at the surface of the earth: this is a new and exciting research and teaching area, and yet obviously a part of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Volcanoes represent another example of a research area, where we have geophysics to geochemists to atmospheric chemists thinking about the fundamental science as well as the potential impact on humans. In addition, many of the tools we use are modernizing: machine learning and artificial intelligence are innovative ways to conduct research, and important tools for our students, in both Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. One of my goals over the next three years will be to try to bridge the gap in teaching and research between the sides of the department to build more synergies and exciting new research and teaching areas.
At the same time, we want to continue our innovative teaching and research in the fundamental earth and atmospheric sciences: maintaining a balance of the depth in the traditional fields of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences while growing the new areas will be an important, but difficult task for us all, but will bring many rewards.
Every day in the paper we see articles about heat waves, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, climate and renewable energy: these all require a deep understanding of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, pointing out the relevance of our teaching, research and outreach.
My main goal as chair is to foster an atmosphere so that each member of our community can reach their potential, and contribute to understanding and solving the multitude of challenges our world faces. Creating a community within the department that values excellence, inclusiveness, diversity, and service and yet maintains a sense of wonder and curiosity about science requires all of us to contribute. I hope that you will join me in this endeavor over the next three years.
All the best,
Natalie