Anna Michalak elected AAAS fellow
Washington, DC—Carnegie Science’s Anna Michalak was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s largest scientific societies. She was recognized for “distinguished and sustained contributions to improving understanding of the global carbon and water cycles and their interactions with human emissions of greenhouse gases at urban to global scales.”
First launched in 1874, the AAAS fellows program represents a distinguished lifetime honor within the scientific community.
“This year’s class of fellows are the embodiment of scientific excellence and service to our communities,” said Sudip S. Parikh chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. “At a time when the future of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. and around the world is uncertain, their work demonstrates the value of sustained investment in science and engineering.”
The fellows are a distinguished cadre recognized for their achievements across disciplines, from research, teaching and technology to administration in academia, industry and government to excellence in communicating and interpreting science to the public.
Michalak is the Founding Director of Carnegie Science’s Climate and Resilience Hub, an umbrella organization within Carnegie Science that facilitates, enables, and scales work in climate resilience and sustainability.
Michalak is the first Carnegie Science faculty member elected as part of the AAAS Section on Atmospheric & Hydrospheric Sciences. Over the course of her career, Michalak has developed novel approaches that leverage atmospheric observations of greenhouse gases for characterizing both anthropogenic emissions and nature-based carbon sinks, in order to make greenhouse gas information actionable for managing emissions and for anticipating climate adaptation needs. She has also advanced our knowledge of how a warming planet and shifting precipitation patterns impact coastal, lake, and river water quality around the world.
This work has positioned Michalak as a thought leader for researchers, policymakers, philanthropists and the private sector. For example, she serves on the advisory boards for the Schmidt Sciences Virtual Institute for the Carbon Cycle and the Virtual Institute for Earth Water, is a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google, and recently co-chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine review of progress toward Implementing the decadal survey for earth observation from space.
The new Fellows will receive a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin to commemorate their election and will be celebrated at a forum in Washington, D.C., this June. The cohort will also be featured in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science this week.