Jake Lowenstern grew up in northern Virginia and developed a love for its mountains and their natural history. At Dartmouth College, he learned about geology, volcanoes, mining, and the inherent conflicts we face in protecting people and our environment in a time of growing populations and resource requirements. After a year studying at Mt. Etna in Sicily, he attended graduate school at Stanford University, where he explored the ways in which magmas contribute to ore deposits and geothermal systems. He extended this work during postdoctoral research at the Geological Survey of Japan, and at the USGS, where he later started as an employee in 1994 in Menlo Park, Calif. Over the next thirty years, he participated in projects related to geothermal development, subsurface intrusions beneath volcanoes, geochronology, and the ways that gases move among crustal, magmatic, hydrologic, and atmospheric reservoirs. He enjoyed exciting projects at volcanoes and geothermal areas in the U.S., as well as Chile, Eritrea, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia. From 2002-2017, he served as scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory where he coordinated science, outreach, monitoring, and hazards assessments. In 2018, he moved to Vancouver, Wash., to direct the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, a now 38-year-old collaboration with USAID. He oversees a team of ~25 passionate staff who assist volcano observatories around the world through multi-disciplinary response and long-term capacity building. The work involves learning about volcanoes, but also about the cultural, bureaucratic, economic, and institutional factors that influence volcanic risk and public safety around the world.