Young Hydrologic Society

Announcing the expanded board for the year 2021-2022!

Chair: Lina Stein

Affiliation: University of Bristol

Sentence about your research: My research focus lies on flood generating processes and how they connect to climate and catchment. 

What’s one thing you’d like to achieve with YHS this year? My aim this year is making sure YHS transitions well into the extension of the Board. With many new people involved we have a chance to advance YHS as a broad and diverse advocate for early career hydrologists.

Secretary: Elena Cristiano

Affiliation: University of Cagliari

Sentence about your research: I am working as Postdoc in the field of urban hydrology, focusing on green roofs and other nature-based solutions to mitigate pluvial floods, to adapt to climate changes and to create smart and resilient cities.

What’s one thing you’d like to achieve with YHS this year? I want to help YHS grow and offer opportunities for young researchers to support their academic growth, through activities focused on enlarging the network, discussing hydrology and interdisciplinary topics. I think that, especially in this difficult period, where contacts are limited, there is the need to strengthen the network among young researchers, supporting each other and consolidating collaborations.

Treasurer: Hannes Müller-Thomy

Affiliation: TU Braunschweig

Sentence about your research: The generation of rainfall on different spatial and temporal scales and its application in a variety of models, ranging from urban hydrological modelling over crop modelling to water resources management.

What’s one thing you’d like to achieve with YHS this year? Due to the world-wide pandemic and the cancellation of so many workshops and conferences I would be happy if YHS can bring young scientists further together to share their thoughts and ideas!

Continue reading →

The Blog Committee 

Correspondence to: Y. H. Society (younghydrologicsociety@gmail.com)

Dear Hydrological Community and Early Career Academic friends,

With a bigger #YHS team in 2021, we are planning to expand the blog! Which topics do you want to read about? Below is a preliminary list; follow the link to vote!

• Profiles featuring the research and careers of ECAs
• Tips on funding and career planning
• Tips on presentations, posters and other academic skills
• Advice on the transition from academia to industry
• Examples of hydrology research leading to positive change
• Experiences of hydrologists moving abroad
• Experiences of underrepresented groups in research
• Technical discussions on particular research topics
• Visions for the future of hydrology from senior researchers
• Other (please specify)

Please share this poll (linked again!) with friends and colleagues to get as many opinions as possible. We’d also love to see lots of blog submissions from our members this year, so please remember us when you meet someone amazing, publish something cool or want to start an interesting discussion!

The Young Hydrologic Society (YHS) is a bottom-up initiative to stimulate the interaction and active participation of young hydrologists within the hydrological community.

Founded in October 2012 the YHS is currently run by a team of enthusiastic MScs, PhD students and post-docs from several universities across the world. The YHS board members manage the day to day YHS activities: organising conference sessions, creating blog posts and running the YHS twitter account.

Each board member usually serves a two-year term. Each co-chair can be run as a team of up to three people. The only exceptions are the positions of YHS chair and Secretary. The YHS chair will be chosen from the current board members.

Following positions are open to receive applications:

Secretary: The secretary is responsible to work closely with the Chair to plan meetings, activities, take minutes during the meetings, and help the coordination of different YHS activities with other board members. 1 vacancy.

Co-chair Blog: The co-chair(s) invite contributions to the blog and serve as editors and reviewers. There is a close connection to the EGU Hydrological Sciences, HEPEX and AGU H3S blogs in the form of joint blog posts. Up to 3 vacancies.

Co-chair National Branches: The co-chair(s) support new and established national YHS branches and national representatives where necessary. Current chair staying: Bethel Ugochukwu Ukazu. Up to 2 vacancies.

Co-chair Outreach: The co-chair(s) manage the YHS platforms on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. That includes sharing YHS news, early career events and job opportunities. Current chair staying: Iskra Mejia-Estrada. Up to 2 vacancies.

Co-chair Diversity: The co-chair(s) aim to make all activities of YHS inclusive for all. They provide resources and information and take part in diversity initiatives of the wider community. Current chair staying: Pedro Torralbo. Up to 2 vacancies.

We welcome applications from all Early Career Hydrologists. If you have any questions about the positions you are welcome to contact current or former chairs.

Election Procedure:

• Open call for candidates in November/December 2020. Interested candidates are invited to apply by sending an email with the subject “YHS Board 2021-2022” with a single file PDF including (1) 200-word statement of purpose for an specified role along with (2) a 2-page CV to younghydrologicsociety@gmail.com by Thursday 15th December 2020. 
• Based on the applications a short list for each open position is created by the current secretary/co-chair(s), and the current YHS board selects the new co-chair(s).
• The new secretary/co-chairs are announced in December and will start their 2-year term from January 2021.

In reaction to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Tayloy and too many others, we, early career scientists of the Young Hydrologic Society, are taking a stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. We pledge to take actionable steps to amplify the voices of Black hydrologists in particular, and our Researchers of Colour colleagues in general, while fighting racial discrimination in the global hydrology community. Black members of our scientific and personal communities are subjected to systemic racism and are justly enraged over the murders and discrimination of Black people everywhere. Our current focus is on the Black Lives Matter movement, but moving forward we will actively listen to the needs of Black and People of Colour and work together to fight discrimination and racism within the geosciences. 

Racism is more than police brutality. Individual and institutional racism exist globally and academia is not immune to racism. In the US, only 10% of PhD graduates are People of Colour [1, 2]. Similar underrepresentation can be found in the UK, where only 1.2 % of PhD stipends are awarded to People of Colour, despite making up 14% of the population [3, 4, 5].

The hydrologic and geoscience community is certainly no exception, as this is a result of systemic discrimination and our individual unconscious biases. What does racism in the geosciences look like? The lack of diversity in the geosciences results from barriers that marginalized communities face even entering sciences in general [2].  Another example includes researchers exploiting their community partners. We’ve barely scratched the surface with these examples and more personal accounts can be found on Twitter – #BlackInTheIvory and #BlackinSTEM.

YHS’s Actions for Anti-Racism

YHS will take the following anti-racist actions..

• We will ensure our Research “Hylights” and Hallway Conversations feature diverse voices from the hydrologic community.

• We will improve our advertisements for YHS board members to reach a wider community, particularly through social media.

• We will reach out to support new and existing national representatives and YHS chapters from underrepresented regions.

• We will invite the YHS community to come together regularly to listen to their needs, support their initiatives, and improve YHS leadership transparency and accountability.

• We will actively advocate for and hold our professional societies accountable to adopting anti-racist policies and improving the representation of Black hydrologists and Hydrologists of Color.

• We will reflect on and evaluate our progress towards the aforementioned actions every six months and develop new anti-racist and anti-discriminatory action plans to hold ourselves and wider community accountable.

Individual’s Actions for Anti-Racism

In addition to YHS’s actions, we as individuals must take steps to continuously educate ourselves, and possibly others, about the racism and discrimination, especially the subtleties and complexities involved, as well as making meaningful structural and cultural changes both in our personal and professional lives. 

• Educate yourself. This does not mean, asking your Black friends and colleagues to do it for you. Inform yourself about the histories of racism in your own country/field/institution, the personal stories and research of Black hydrologists, and best practices for being an ally. Some resources to help you get started can be found here:
  
  • Mireille Cassandra Harper: 10 steps to non-optical allyship If You Are White And Anti-Racist, This Non-Optical Allyship Guide Is Required Reading
  • Great article specifically about the geosciences by Kuheli Dutt: Race and racism in the geosciences Race and racism in the geosciences
  • Beronda Montgomery, a Professor at Michigan State University (@BerondaM, worth following) is a diversity and mentoring advocate. She collated an equity reading list in this thread https://twitter.com/BerondaM/status/1219977765027340288
  • Make time to learn how you can best support Black hydrologists and what you can do to be anti-racist. Race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and other characteristics intersect. A good starting point in regard to intersectionality is research by Kimberlé Crenshaw who coined the term in 1989. You can watch her TED talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o. Another good resource is this: An Antiracist Reading List by Dr Ibram X. Kendi

• Listen to and amplify the voices of Black hydrologists, Hydrologists of Colour, and other hydrologists in underrepresented communities. Twitter is a great way to to do this, for example search for #BlackInSTEM, #BlackAFinSTEM, @GeoLatinas, @500womensci, #Black In Geoscience. However, we urge members of the hydrology community to find other creative ways to put Black, People of Colour, and other underrepresented voices first.

• Recognize your own biases. Take the Implicit Association Test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html) to assess and recognize your own implicit racial biases.

• Reflect on the diversity of your colleagues, collaborators, syllabi, and reading lists. Ask yourself, “Are most of my contacts from one or two research groups or regions? Am I covering the work of underrepresented researchers and hydrologists in my classes? Am I only reading articles and journals from certain countries?” With these questions we can start to be considerate of the barriers that face our colleagues – such as, the high costs of attending an annual European Geophysical Union (EGU) or American Geophysical Union (AGU) event for those in other geographical regions. 

• Reflect on how you review articles. Ask, “Do I hold more preference to articles coming from certain regions or universities?” We suggest keeping your biases in mind when peer reviewing articles and ensuring your criticism is constructive.

• Celebrate Role Models. A recent study found that the sense of belonging of Black women in science, technology, engineering and math training programs depended on whether they had role models who shared their racial identity [6]. With regard to celebrating role models, award nominations are upon us. Every EGU member can nominate a fellow hydrologist for an EGU award. The deadline for 2021 nominations is the 30^th of June 2020. This is your opportunity to honour scientific achievements, particularly achievements by Black hydrologists and other Hydrologists of Color. We encourage that award committees undergo diversity, equity, and inclusion training to reduce the negative impacts of their unconscious bias and survivor bias when selecting awardees.
  
• Hold Leadership Accountable. Remember that while the news coverage may die down, the challenges faced by Black people will not. Press your mentors, advisors, and leaders in the community to be aware of their cognitive biases and hold them accountable to enact change. Don’t start from scratch without input from marginalized communities. Black and underrepresented communities have already given suggestions for individuals and organizations. For example, see A Call to Action for an Anti-Racist Science Community from Geoscientists of Color: Listen, Act, Lead and a Call for a Robust Anti-Racism Plan for The Geosciences 

Artwork by Danielle Coke (Personal Site: https://www.ohhappydani.com/, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohhappydani/?hl=en, Twitter: https://twitter.com/ohhappydani)

Contribution by Lina Stein, Sheila Saia, Caitlyn Hall, Andrea Popp, Harsh Beria, Sina Khatami, Nilay Dogulu, Hannes Müller-Thomy, and the Young Hydrologic Society (YHS) team

References

[1] Goldberg, Emma, 2019. Earth Science Has a Whiteness Problem, The New York Times

[2] Dutt, Kuheli, 2020. Race and racism in the geosciences, Nature Geoscience, 13(1), pp.2-3. 

[3] Williams, Paulette; Bath, Sukhi; Arday, Jason; Lewis, Chantelle, 2019. The Broken Pipeline – Barriers to Black PhD Students Accessing Research Council Funding

[4] Hill, Steven; Turner, Nicola, 2019. Access and success for black, Asian and minority ethnicity groups in postgraduate research study

[5] Population of England and Wales – GOV.UK Ethnicity facts and figures[6] Johnson, India R; Pietri, Evava S.; Fullilove, Felicia, 2019. Exploring Identity-Safety Cues and Allyship Amoung Black Women Students in STEM Environments, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 43(2):131-150.