EAGER: The Geoscience behind Resilient Infrastructure Careers: Unlocking the Intrinsic Value of Diverse Communities

This proposal outlines the Emerging Geoscience Scholars (EGS) model, a novel approach towards nurturing talent and welcoming identity. The PIs propose to pilot new approaches to the engagement of professional societies with people in the cities that host their annual meetings. The PIs propose to start modestly with 20-30 scholars from historically underrepresented communities, disconnected youth, veterans, and transitional (unemployed or underemployed) people per year investigating careers and sharing their findings as emerging professionals at a major geoscience conference, the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

By sharing their work in a professional science meeting and putting the weight of a major scientific society and large academic institution behind those investigations, ideas can grow into a practice that can ultimately transform the geoscience infrastructure and workforce as well as other scientific and professional associations. With the emphasis that the Biden Administration has put on infrastructure and conservation, partnering with AGU, and the many professions it covers, is an ideal starting point for this experimental program.

This program aims to increase the capacity for a resilient and sustainable built infrastructure and advance climate justice, by ensuring that the geoscience and the wider infrastructure workforce of the future adopts values and methods that center on and embrace the core values of equity, justice, and inclusiveness - from diversity comes strength. A sustainable future workforce for the geosciences must be composed of, and ultimately led by, people of color, Native Americans, and immigrants.

It must start now with this rising generation. This proposed learning/training ecosystem is designed to be an open-source model or template that can be adopted by other professional associations and partnering educational institutions nationwide; it thus contributes to the common educational and research infrastructure for the development of a diverse and globally competitive US workforce.

By addressing issues important to urban coastal communities under pressures from climate change, the effort has the potential to improve the wellbeing of people in society. By educating and engaging youth and lifelong learners in local scientific and social issues, it helps develop a more involved and informed public as well as broadening racial and ethnic diversity in the geosciences

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.