August 2025 Newsletter

We’re excited to announce the Fall 2025 Early Career Seminar and would love your help getting the word out! These seminars are a great opportunity to hear from Early Career Researchers and learn about cutting-edge work within the biogeosciences. You will need to register to get the Zoom link.

• Xian Wang of University of Nebraska-Lincon “The Potential for Albedo-Driven Climate Mitigation using No-Till Management in Agroecosystems”

• Panchami Jaya of Purdue University “Evaluating Soil Carbon Dynamics and Climate Change Impacts in Humid Tropical Forests and Plantations of the Southern Western Ghats, India: Insights from Process-Based Simulation Models.”

• Swati Singh of Auburn University “UAV-Based Multispectral and Lidar Remote Sensing for Detecting and Mapping Brown Spot Needle Blight in Loblolly Pine Forests”

When: 3 September, 2025 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

AGU Annual Meeting DEI Travel Grant Application Now Available

The AGU Biogeosciences DEI committee is pleased to offer the AGU Annual Meeting DEI Travel Grant. With many incredible applications in past years, this competitive award was created to resource outstanding diverse members of the AGU Biogeosciences community by providing a grant of up to $1500 (with a minimum award amount of the cost of graduate student early bird registration) for travel or costs related to attending the Annual Meeting. Applications are now open and will be due  10 September. Top applicants will: (1) provide diverse perspective and have been highly involved in DEI initiatives; (2) demonstrate how the meeting will benefit the scientists’ career; (3) present research that is of broad interest to the biogeoscience community and impactful; (4) demonstrate that the award is important for the scientist to attend the meeting and that there is sufficient additional support to match this award.

Apply here! 

Faculty at under-resourced two and four-year institutions often have higher teaching loads and do not have access to significant travel funds, making it more difficult for them to attend scientific conferences. Attendance at conferences allows faculty to establish connections to other researchers and bring back the latest innovations in research and teaching to their classrooms. AGU and the Education Section are pleased to announce that NSF-funding is again available to help support faculty who teach at 2YC and 4YC institutions participate in the AGU annual conference. The application deadline is 3 September. Read more about the program and apply here.

Application deadline: 3 September

Calling All Students: Apply for the Freilich Competition

The Freilich Competition provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate creative ways to use data visualization to present complex problems in the Earth and space sciences. Winners receive a $3,000 travel grant to attend the AGU Annual Meeting and the opportunity to present on the NASA Presentation Theater at AGU25! Learn more and apply by the 10 September deadline.

Please continue to take advantage of these AGU resources to stay informed, to share your own stories, and to share your views with lawmakers:

AGU made a new page that has updates and resources for members impacted by federal actions, including science advocacy tutorials.

If you have been personally impacted - please consider sharing your story with AGU so they can represent the experiences of our members in their work on Capitol Hill. Share your story here.

Speak Up for the Earth and Space Sciences! Information and suggestions provided here.

Follow us on Instagram (@biogeosciences_ecc) and Bluesky (@biogeosciences-ecc.bsky.social) for the latest updates and announcements!

Yours,
Emily Bernhardt, Section President
Kate Heckman, Section Secretary
Rodrigo Vargas, Section President-Elect, Fellows Committee Chair
Colleen Hansel, Section Past President
Sophie Von Framm, Section Webmaster
Yang Song, Annual Meeting Program Chair
Emily Cardarelli and Jennifer Glass, DEI Committee Co-Chairs
Ariel Johnson and Kalyn Dorheim, Early Career Committee Co-Chairs
Salvo Calabrese and Yakun Zhang, Soils Processes and Critical Zone Technical Committee Co-Chairs
Ashley Ballantyne, Chair, Outstanding Student Presentation Award Committee