The AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) Nomination Task Force (NTF) seeks out deserving but overlooked SPA members and nominates them to put their work in front of awards and honors committees.
When the NTF formed in 2017, in the preceding 3 years the percent of AGU SPA fellow nominations that were women was 6% (1 of 16 nominations), 14% (2 of 14), and 0% (0 of 15) nominations, despite women making up a significantly larger fraction of AGU membership (December 5 2017 SPA newsletter announcement, see here). This is just one example; many other groups are also nominated at rates below their membership, thus are far less likely to win awards. Moreover, this is not a problem unique to SPA (see “Further Reading”).
Since 2017, the NTF has been involved in 24 Fellow Nominations, 29 nominations for other AGU awards, and 5 nominations for non-AGU awards (see “Impact of NTF”).
Please contact AGU SPA e-mail address (agu.spa.nominationtaskforce@gmail.com) if you’d like more information about the NTF or would like to join this year’s efforts. Everyone is welcome to join, and contributions are needed from all career levels. Participating in the task force is a valuable and unique opportunity for early-career folks to network with more senior scientists, to learn more about the AGU awards process, and to nominate deserving but overlooked colleagues for awards.