I am deeply honored and thankful for being nominated as a candidate for vice president-Sections. AAPG has helped me grow tremendously throughout my academic and professional career, while giving me the pleasure of meeting and learning from many scientists from around the world.

I chose to stand for office as I want to not only give back to our geoscience community, but to continue creating a shared voice among our United States Sections – one that is diverse, resonates with inclusivity, champions sustainability, and pushes the technical frontiers of our discipline.

To accomplish this, I plan to reinforce relationships between academia and industry, create more leadership opportunities for students and young professionals (YPs), and host more technical, networking and mentorship opportunities.

The energy landscape is rapidly evolving, with the new generation of incoming geoscientists playing a critical role within it. This will require different perspectives and subsurface characterization skills from many disciplines and backgrounds. As the chairman for the AAPG Global Young Professionals (YP), I have been collaborating with the Regions and Sections to re-establish YP initiatives. By connecting local leadership with engaged geoscientists, we are working to bolster YP engagement while delivering robust geotechnical and networking opportunities for our members.

We also collaborated with the AAPG Latin American and Caribbean Region to bring back the International Student and YP Leadership Summit this year. Attendees from 13 different countries gathered to learn about leadership, share lessons learned, and strengthen their geoscience network on a global level. I intend to leverage these experiences to unite the various local associations and create a network that will help us become further engaged with our members as a shared voice; one that is “glocal” (global and local) and serves as the voice for the current and future generation of geoscientists.

Geoscientists are faced with solving a dual challenge – meeting the growing demand for energy while lowering our carbon footprint. The AAPG Sustainable Development Committee is actively showing how geoscientists are addressing this challenge and are pivotal in advancing sustainability. As one of the committee’s co-chairs, we have worked together to create a variety of programs under a global platform that empowers geoscientists. The Sustainable Development in Energy Contest has been running for a third year now and is enabling the next generation of geoscientists to develop and implement their innovative, sustainable projects across the globe.
Having graduated and working for a few years within the energy industry, I plan to leverage my diverse experiences as a young professional to help our Sections further develop new and diverse geotechnical programs while strengthening our engagement within the geoscience community.

Over the years, I have come to know AAPG as a passionate community that advances our science through innovation, collaboration and technical veracity. As our energy landscape changes, we are shaping a future where geoscience will deliver sustainable energy for generations to come. AAPG has helped me grow in countless ways, and I hope to be a part of the change that continues building upon the Association’s bright future.