ASLO 2024 Award Winners

Abstract

Each year, ASLO honors aquatic scientists of various career stages for their exceptional contributions to advancing the fields of limnology and oceanography with seven achievement awards. See below for the list of this year's list of winners.

The ASLO awardees are invited to accept their award at an ASLO sponsored meeting and give a plenary presentation about their work and career. These presentations are recorded and added to our extensive YouTube library of award talks and meeting plenaries (http://bit.ly/ASLOUTube). This year, the 2024 G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award was presented to Elizabeth Kujawinski at the 2024 Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans, LA, USA. Robert Chen, the recipient of the 2024 Ramón Margalef Award for Excellence in Education, will be honored at the 2025 Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Charlotte, NC, USA. The remaining five awards were presented at the 2024 Summer ASLO Meeting in Madison, WI, USA.

Do you know someone deserving of an ASLO Award? Consider sending in a nomination! ASLO awardees are chosen from member-submitted nominations only, so we need your help to fill a diverse slate of awardees for 2025. Nominees do not need to be an ASLO member. The nominations period is currently open and will close in September (See http://aslo.org/aslo-awards/). For more on the awards process, check out Wickland and Pollard (2019).

G. EVELYN HUTCHINSON AWARD

EBK: Together with my lab group, we quantify small polar metabolites in seawater that may be used in exchange reactions between microbes. Although some of our measurements target molecules that have been observed by others (like amino acids), many of our measurements are the first of their kind in seawater and thus bring new insights into the molecules that could be important currencies in marine microbial consortia. My favorite molecule in this context is pantothenic acid (vitamin B₅). Pantothenic acid is a precursor to coenzyme A (CoA), a critical intermediate in the carbon cycle, and its intracellular concentrations can regulate carbon cycling in many cells. Because almost all organisms can produce pantothenic acid due to its role in the foundational metabolism of the cell, vitamin B₅ was not considered to be an important molecule for exchange among microbes and thus was rarely measured in seawater. Over the past four years, we measured monthly or bi-monthly pantothenic acid concentrations at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site in the North Atlantic Ocean. The depth profile of pantothenic acid is remarkably stable over time, with elevated concentrations in the upper 100 m, and decreasing into the mesopelagic zone. With newer methods, we see some structure in these profiles, indicating that pantothenic acid concentrations are responding to different consortia with depth. I am interested in determining the controlling factors on pantothenic concentrations with the goal of understanding its role in consortia and its turnover time in the surface ocean.

EBK: C-CoMP has a multifaceted mission: (1) to explore the intricacies of the microbe-metabolite network in the ocean sufficiently to understand its role in regulating carbon cycling and its sensitivities to a changing climate; (2) to expand ocean literacy at all education levels; and (3) to broaden the diversity of ocean scientists. In our science research, we use a combination of laboratory, field, and computational studies to explore ocean microbes and their chemical impact at high resolution and efficiency in the current and future environment. Our education researchers study how to bring more ocean science content to K–12 science curricula and how to support emerging research careers within undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research populations. In addition, we develop and support course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) that bring our ocean science research to undergraduate classrooms. Finally, C-CoMP supports two year fellowships for postbaccalaureate students and for postdoctoral scholars. We use open-science approaches and best practices in team science to build a culture of equity and inclusion in C-CoMP.

If we are successful in our renewal proposal, ten years of C-CoMP will build a community of integrated scholars and educators dedicated to understanding important ocean processes at a critical time for our planet. I hope that this community will be ready to tackle important questions of carbon cycling, in particular, the rates of change with the microbe-metabolite network that impact carbon flux in the surface ocean. I hope that we will provide a pathway for K–12 curricula to incorporate ocean science literacy to educate the next generation about the importance of the ocean in our planet's health. Lastly, I hope that the next generation of ocean scientists will include talent from all backgrounds and lived experiences, ready to bring their creativity and ingenuity to mitigating the impacts of climate change on the ocean's ecosystems.

EBK: I would like to understand the rates of turnover of metabolites within the labile DOM pool in different strata of the ocean. These rates are critically important to understanding the dynamics of labile DOM and, by extension, to the sensitivity of the carbon turnover every year in the surface ocean. Adding these rates (and related parameters) to biogeochemical models will rapidly expand our ability to probe the intricacies of the ocean microbiome. My lab has developed two new methods for measuring dissolved metabolites; these methods use sufficiently small sample volumes such that they are suitable for rate studies that disentangle the sources and sinks of metabolites. I would like to train the next generation of DOM scientists to use these methods to answer our community's emerging questions at the intersection of marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. I cannot imagine a better legacy than empowering marine scientists across the world to understand our oceans better.

RAYMOND L. LINDEMAN AWARD

RL: It is hard to think of a single surprising result as there were many. In studies where you have multiple different types of analysis covering a wide array of biological and chemical properties, especially when they are so widespread in time, most results come sequentially and not all at once. For example, I measured the first DOC (dissolved organic carbon) and FDOM (fluorescent dissolved organic matter) concentrations rapidly when I came back from the Labrador Sea, but I had to wait a few months to analyze Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry samples and several more months for 16S. By the time I got the 16S data, the core story about DOM transformation was shaping and this new analysis, which brought a different perspective than the chemical data, fit nicely with the patterns that we observed. I think this is what surprised me the most, every time I included a new analysis, it made sense with the existing story without modifying it too much. About two years after starting the experiment when I measured the last DOC samples, they all had the same values which was surprising to me, but still made sense. Of course, finding the right approach and analysis to use took time and efforts at every step of the process and I needed to be creative on how to illustrate the results to make a cohesive story. But overall, there were no conflicting results even with such a diverse array of analyses.

RL: I think the microbial carbon pump (MCP) has a lot of research opportunities as there are so many unknowns. When we read the literature on the subject, the MCP is depicted as an important pathway of carbon sequestration that has, over a long period of time, built up the immense reservoir of DOC in the oceans. However, we also need to remember that carbon sequestrated this way by microbes is the exception, not the norm: most of the organic molecules are incorporated into biomass or mineralized. Finding under which specific circumstances refractory dissolved organic carbon (RDOC) is produced will allow us to calculate the rates of sequestration and assess the potential magnitude of this process in response to climate change. This field of research is also heavily method-driven, and I think we (the scientific community) will need to take a step back to get a broader picture before moving forward. On a final thought, my study looked at the question using multiple angles taken from biogeochemistry, microbial ecology, and ocean physics. I believe that future breakthroughs will also require collaboration among different fields of research to have a more holistic understanding of the MCP.

RL: Publishing is a hard process and there is no shortcut. First, you need to hone your writing skills, especially if English is not your first language. The way you transmit your ideas in an article is as important as the ideas themselves: there are thousands of papers published in aquatic sciences each year and you need your research to stand out. There are numerous excellent books on how to write, how to write science, on writing habits, and so on. Find one that you enjoy reading and re-reading, this will make your own writing much easier. Learn to enjoy writing, it will become less of a burden but something you are excited about. All the efforts that you put in learning how to be a better writer will pay off multiple times over your career, whether you stay in academia or not.

Once the paper is written and all co-authors are happy with it, there is still the peer-review process. And it is hard. More often than not, reviewers will tear down the article and find everything that does not work, hopefully to make your science and/or storytelling better. When you first open the comments and read through them, you will likely get irritated, or sad, or any negative emotion really. That is normal. Take a deep breath, finish reading and close your document for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours; there is nothing good that will come out of this in this state of mind. When that primal response is gone, open it again and start editing your manuscript. My experience is that I tend to agree with reviewers when they say something is not clear. If you learn to appreciate writing, editing your manuscript to incorporate reviewers' comments will be a lot easier. And then repeat for the number of reviewing rounds that is needed. My MCP paper got two desk rejections, and three split decisions before being accepted. Do not get discouraged with a negative review and use this opportunity to make your work better.

ALFRED C. REDFIELD LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

JS: If I look back at my career and try to identify my biggest achievement, the answer is simple: it is the over 100 graduates (and an even larger number of undergraduates) that have passed through our lab and gone on to develop remarkable careers mainly in academia, but also in key government, NGO, or consultancy positions. When getting an award, I sometimes feel (to use a Canadian analogy) like the coach of an NHL hockey team that wins the Stanley Cup, but only I come onto the ice to hold the trophy! The contributions of my students and other collaborators have been remarkable. If I deserve any award, it should be for attracting highly dedicated and hard-working people, who enjoy doing important science and are a pleasure to be with.

When it comes to career turning points, and again this was very much a team effort, it was when I was still in my 20s, and acid rain was the major environmental issue in many parts of the world. Until then, paleolimnology was very much seen as an esoteric field, accused by some to be little more than “story telling.” Critical questions in the 1980s were: Have lakes acidified? If so, when and by how much? And who was to blame? A highly polarized debate was underway. Several of us realized that these questions could be answered from the sedimentary record if we could develop ways to reconstruct pH and associated changes over decades and centuries. This was a hectic time when policymakers wanted results and wanted them fast, and so highly reliable methods had to be quickly developed and applied. It helped that this issue also attracted diverse scientists, perhaps most notably those with highly developed numerical skills who would work with us to develop transfer functions and other multi-proxy approaches. Paleolimnologists showed that our techniques were robust and reproducible and that we could answer key policy questions.

This time was also a turning point for me as I began working frequently with the media, being interviewed on TV, radio, and newspapers (we did not have online media yet!) about our research and what it meant. I quickly realized that if there was an information vacuum, it would quickly be filled by opinions from vested interest groups. Scientists had to counter wishful thinking with evidence. It was a “baptism of fire” for me at this time. Things were different then in universities, and you often needed a thick skin—well of course there were serious attacks from the acid-producing industries (and their proxies), but also to some extent from other academics. I would hear, often second hand, comments like “Smol never saw a microphone he didn't like.” My view then is the same as it is now—the public, by-and-large, pay for the research we do, and they have a right to know what we found. If we do not transfer that knowledge and fill the information void with accessible language, then it will be filled by others.

JS: This project (Smol 2023) started with winning the International Ecology Institute Prize (https://www.int-res.com/ecology-institute/eci-prize), and one aspect of the award was to write a book (on any topic) in their Excellence in Ecology series (https://www.int-res.com/book-series/excellence-in-ecology-books/ee30/). I was always interested in the Arctic as one of the last largely unexplored areas on the planet, and last year marked my fortieth anniversary of Arctic research. Given the paucity of direct limnological observations, and given the sensitivity of polar regions, it was an ideal region to apply paleolimnological approaches. In this thirteen chapter book, which is part memoir and part textbook, I recounted the many ways we used history to address key environmental issues. An overriding theme is the critical role that accelerated climate change plays as a “threat multiplier.” Highlighted research includes collaborations with Indigenous knowledge holders and archeologists, tracking past ocean flooding events, the repercussions of permafrost thaw, the effects of pollutants from both local and distant sources, as well as tracking long-term changes in salmon and seabird populations. I emphasize the importance of using diverse sources of information, the role that personal relationships can play in successful collaborative programs (i.e., work well with colleagues and they will work well with you), and issues linked to environmental justice for Northern peoples.

JS: I was asked to be the founding editor of the Journal of Paleolimnology when I was ~ thirty years old, a position I held for twenty years, and then became Editor of Environmental Reviews. Over those thirty-five plus years I learned that reviews are at times “opinions” and are not necessarily “facts,” and that editors, as gatekeepers, must be thorough and vigilant in weighing the evidence. You do not become an editor hoping to win popularity contests. Authors, reviewers, and editors are human, and often have strong opinions on what is right. The peer-review process, with all its frustrations, is not perfect, but it is the best system available.

I have often found that ECRs make excellent referees—they often know the recent literature well and have a keen interest in moving science forward. Yes, we are all busy, and yes, it is easy to press “decline,” but it is our collective responsibility to contribute to the peer-review process. Mentors can play a key role here as well. If senior scientists cannot do a review, they can suggest ECRs (whom the editor may not yet know) as alternate referees. ECRs can also take a proactive approach and send their CVs to editors, noting they are available to review in specific areas. If you are asked to do a review, accept the role (if appropriate) and appreciate that your main job is to point out errors in approaches or conclusions, with an overall goal of improving the paper. Remember, there are constructive ways to criticize. Stated more plainly, being anonymous is no excuse for being a jerk!

RUTH PATRICK AWARD

BS: Early in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Ruth Patrick handed me a small collection of recently published articles. They described how unnatural thermal modification of river reaches downstream of large dams (cold water) and power plants (hot water) was extinguishing the resident aquatic fauna and flora, although lethal minimum or maximum temperatures did not appear to be involved. Ruth said “read the papers and think about this huge environmental problem” and “a reasonable hypothesis for this matter will be a meaningful contribution to limnology.” At the time, Ruth was my thesis advisor so I took this challenge very seriously. I discussed several ideas with Dr. Robin Vannote who was also on my advisory committee and Director of the Stroud Water Research Center at the time. He thought my initial ideas were “too obvious” and “unlikely to be productive” and so challenged me to think more broadly and deeply about the problem. My thinking and emphasis at the time was on aquatic insects, especially mayflies (order Ephemeroptera) because they were being devastated by the thermal pollution. In addition, mayflies were well suited for laboratory work because some species had short life cycles, all were short lived as adults, and females metamorphosed with their full complement of eggs (hence fecundity reflects larval rearing conditions). So, I proposed field and laboratory studies involving the interaction of temperature with larval bioenergetics, developmental dynamics, and the ecological/biogeographical aspects of life history phenomena. After a series of experiments under different temperature regimes (fluctuating and constant; published in L&O and Ecology) and considering the geographic distribution of mayfly species, we (Vannote and me) published the “Thermal Equilibrium Hypothesis” in Science (Sweeney and Vannote 1978) and The American Naturalist (Vannote and Sweeney 1980). The hypothesis proposed, among other things, that extreme temperature patterns caused by humans or by extreme southern or northern locations disrupted a species' metabolic, growth, and developmental dynamics, and hence life history characteristics such that individual fecundity was compromised leading to gradual population extinction. This success inspired me to consider other questions/challenges related to aquatic insects and stream and river ecosystems and seek fundamental solutions with good science. I believe that our field can and should continue to evolve in this direction i.e., seeking answers and direction grounded in the best science and using it as the basis for sound environmental policy.

BS: My best advice is to be eclectic i.e., generate your ideas and approaches to understanding, evaluating, and solving scientific/environmental problems from a broad and diverse range of sources. In looking back, I benefitted from reading a broad spectrum of articles in aquatic journals associated with societies like ASLO, Society for Freshwater Science, the Ecological Society of America, the Society for Evolution. However, with the encouragement of Robin Vannote in graduate school, I also developed a lifelong habit of browsing through all the articles in the weekly issues of the journal Science while always looking at each abstract, article, or news item for something of value or relevance to aquatic science. This was mentally stimulating and rewarding in terms of research approaches and ideas and encouraged me to incorporate the latest technology into my experimentation. Also, I think it helped me pose questions regarding aquatic ecosystems that were forward thinking and often out of the norm.

BS: It is hard for me to separate lessons learned in graduate school from Drs. Ruth Patrick and Robin Vannote. Both always emphasized the need to understand how a stream or river worked naturally in order to: (1) know whether it was disturbed or impacted by something; (2) the degree to which it was impacted; and (3) how to mitigate the impact. In other words, basic research on natural systems was key to evaluating and restoring disturbed/polluted systems. Robin was more interested in natural ecosystems. Ruth always stressed that you could learn a lot from carefully studying both pristine and polluted aquatic ecosystems.

Ruth kept you on your toes. There was no passing by her without her asking you questions like…. What new thing did you learn today? What exciting paper did you read in the last two days and please give me a three-sentence summary? If she assigned five technical papers to read before the next class, you had better have read and thought about them because she was going to call on someone (maybe you) to stand up and provide a summary and take away message for all five. In her lectures, Ruth emphasized the resiliency of aquatic ecosystems, with each species being quite resilient unto itself and collectively contributing to the resiliency of the ecosystem. She cautioned, however, that the magnitude and frequency of human impacts can overwhelm this resiliency. She often used field trips to drive home her lecture points. For example, one Sunday morning she had us (graduate students) collect from a stream in Pennsylvania that was impacted by acid mine pollution and then we spent the afternoon collecting from a natural stream in the New Jersey pine barrens. The pH of both streams was highly acidic (~ 3). We collected very few individuals or species of algae, macroinvertebrates, and fish from the acid mine stream but many individuals and species from the pine barren stream. Ruth collected alongside of us in her hip boots despite being around sixty-five years old but spoke little all day. At days end, we reported out our findings. Without discussion she then said: “Ladies and Gentlemen, you now have demonstrated for yourselves that aquatic species and ecosystems can adapt to stressful situations (like low pH) but if, only if, they are given enough time… class dismissed.” Other take aways for me from Ruth and Robin were: (1) aquatic systems are resilient and so polluted ones will recover with restoration of a more natural setting; (2) diversity within and among trophic levels is the key to ecosystem stability and functionality; (3) each species is important; (4) science is fast paced and one needs to work 24/7 at it to excel; (5) set the bar high and then go for it; and (6) do not give up… just think about it harder.

JOHN H. MARTIN AWARD

PH: Work around the idea of lake metabolism has changed substantially in the past twenty years. Initially, the community focused on deployment of the kinds of sensors needed to estimate metabolism, especially dissolved oxygen and temperature, as well as meteorological data in some cases. Because of the costs and the effort, people mostly measured these variables at one location near the lake surface and during typical field seasons (summer). Questions around spatial heterogeneity arose, and a bunch of work emerged on littoral vs. pelagic metabolism and metabolism at different depths in the water column. In lakes with substantial littoral zones, spatial heterogeneity can matter a lot. In stratified lakes, there are big differences between epilimnetic and hypolimnetic metabolism. Similarly for time, there were important questions about seasonal to annual scales of metabolism that people began addressing as sensor deployments began spanning years. It came as no surprise that in lakes with strong seasonal patterns, lake metabolism varied with seasonal temperature, stratification patterns, and available light and nutrients. Analytical models evolved at the same time to include variations on process-based models, both in their complicatedness and how they were fit to the observational data. With multi-year data and models that accommodated seasonality, people began asking questions about whole lake carbon budgets and the roles lakes play in the landscape-scale carbon cycling. Recently, there has been an emphasis on lake metabolism as a framework for water quality, because the modeling approach lends itself to estimating dynamics of oxygen, particulate organic carbon (index of algal biomass), and water clarity. These three variables are indicators of lake trophic state and can determine, for example, oxythermal habitat.

PH: To me, the most rewarding aspect of this highly cited paper is the discussions and collaborations it has catalyzed. As a reader, some of my favorite papers are relatively simple, with a clear question and results that speak clearly to the question. I feel like our paper meets those criteria. Our paper also came out about the time when sensors were becoming affordable for limnologists. I do not think we anticipated how a simple science question, coupled with new and accessible technologies, would resonate so well with our community.

PH: The Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) started as a collaboration between two limnologists, David Hamilton and Tim Kratz, and two computer scientists, Peter Arzberger and Fang-Pang Lin. The initial vision was to build a global network of lake observatories that would provide data across new time scales over a broad gradient of lake ecosystems. Lake metabolism was an early use-case. As GLEON rapidly grew, lake metabolism became the topic of one of the working groups, because it is easy to understand, is relevant to many questions about lakes and reservoirs, makes great use of commonly measured limnological variables, and can be modeled in different ways towards different problems. Lake metabolism also helped catalyze common software code development. There are a number of software tools from GLEON that are still in use today, including LakeMetabolizer. Sharing ideas, skills, and resources is baked into the GLEON collaborative framework, and lake metabolism is an idea and approach that fits nicely therein. For NTL-LTER, there is more to say than I have space to say it, but the theme is that NTL-LTER enables innovative research of all kinds, including lake metabolism. Many lake metabolism papers are about the NTL-LTER study lakes or include them in more extensive analyses because of the comprehensive and long-term data, which are openly available. However, it always comes back to the community. Colleagues at NTL-LTER are a constant source of ideas, productivity, and support, which has led to many creative papers on metabolism. Most recent work has included long-term phenology of lake metabolism, projections of recovery from eutrophication based on a metabolism framework, and use of lake metabolism to train machine learning models.

RAMÓN MARGALEF AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION

RC: I come from a family of educators. I joined the Environmental Sciences Program at University of Massachusetts Boston in 1992. This was a graduate program, but I told the dean that I wanted to teach undergraduate students. Thirty-two years later, I teach the largest class on campus, Introduction to Environmental Science, at five hundred and fifty students, and the program has become a fully independent undergraduate and graduate School for the Environment.

My first exploration of outreach was a large ocean education fair where I showed how lasers could be used to detect chlorophyll and colored dissolved organic matter in seawater. It was a big hit, and I realized outreach was something at which I could be good, and that could make an impact on public understanding of ocean science.

My first big project was the Watershed Integrated Sciences Partnership (WISP), where we worked with three school districts to integrate resources and activities around the Neponset Watershed in the classroom (https://www.wisp.umb.edu). WISP was supported by the NSF GK-12 program, where graduate science students were placed in middle school classrooms throughout the year. Through this project, I worked closely with Boston Public Schools, middle school teachers, and inquiry-based science curriculum, and developed professional development for scientists interested in teaching, science communication, and outreach.

Then there was Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE): COSEE New England and COSEE OCEAN. Through this work and my service on the ASLO Education and Engagement Committee, I was able to collaborate regionally and nationally with ocean education experts, international organizations, and dedicated individuals from the science and informal and formal education communities. We developed the Ocean Literacy Principles, integrated ocean curriculum into national and local standards, created new positions in research organizations for education and outreach coordinators, and distributed over 20,000 copies of the Best of COSEE Hands-On Activities (http://www.cosee.net/best_activities). Two organizations have resulted from this work: COSEE China and the New England Ocean Science Collaborative (www.neosec.org).

The Boston Science Partnership was an NSF Math Science Partnership where we worked closely with Boston Public Schools to offer professional development for over six hundred science teachers that increased the standardized test scores of students who were taught by the teachers who participated in our programs. Cool Science, an NSF Advancing Informal Science Learning program, blends art and science through youth developing posters on climate change and educating adults by placing winning artwork on public buses in Massachusetts, Kansas, and Missouri. Educational innovations were supported from both the science and education divisions within NSF, NASA, ONR, and SeaGrant, and have led to successful integrative projects from Foundations such as the Stone Foundation and Waverly Street Foundation.

These large educational grants helped fund my graduate students and my lab, helped me get promoted to Full Professor, and allowed me to become a better educator and scientist at the professor, dean, and community partner levels (Chen 2008).

I have been invited to serve on the Boards of the New England Aquarium, the Alliance for Business Leadership, Climate Beacon, and ASLO for my work bridging ocean science and education. Many of my graduate students have gone on to impactful careers as scientists with strong communication and teaching skills and educators with strong scientific content knowledge and understanding, and in new transdisciplinary jobs that we did not know existed.

My work crossing, integrating, and blending scientific research with formal and informal STEM and art education across the K through Gray spectrum continues….

RC: As part of the Partners Aligned To Heighten broad participation in STEM program (PATHS; www.pathspartners.org), Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) participants work closely with the Digital Storytelling in Asian American Studies Team supervised by Dr. Shirley Tang at University of Massachusetts Boston. We lift up BIPOC voices, foster visions for change, and promote BIPOC leadership within STEM pathways as we create video products with participants through a labor-intensive co-production process.

At the first cohort's premier event in June 2022 at the Museum of Science in Boston, I had the privilege to view seven video stories with storytellers, their families and friends, and a broad audience from across Boston. Without a dry eye in the crowd, I stood up and made the comment that I now question every interaction I have ever had with any of my students over my last thirty-five years, as one micro-affirmation vs. one micro-aggression could change the career pathway of any of these gifted individuals: a smile in the hallway, my hurrying off after my big class, my providing an extension for a student who may be working sixty hours per week without enough food to eat. I think about this moment often, and try to do better… to get to know my students, to not make assumptions about them, to celebrate their diverse backgrounds, assets, and perspectives. Excerpts from these video stories can be viewed at: https://www.pathspartners.org/year1stories.

RC:

Listen. When you are working with students, young scientists, or community scientists, you should get to know them as individuals, what interests them, what drives them. In this way, you can modify appropriately the way you convey your scientific knowledge, interests, and perspectives. By carefully respecting and understanding the specific audience that you might be working with, they will become more engaged, see your science as more relevant, and will sometimes be inspired to get involved.

Practice. Being able to explain your research to diverse audiences is a skill that can be developed. Just as with lab skills and experimentation, practice makes better. The more you practice explaining your research to non-scientists, telling stories about ocean science, and trying new analogies that can help explain complex concepts, the better you can become at teaching, engaging, and supporting young scientists.

Assess and improve. By viewing your classroom or science fair as a laboratory, you can continually improve your education and outreach skills. Scientists critically evaluation and examine their methods and data to come to their conclusions and move their science forward; educators that use constant assessment and evaluation can also develop sharable best practices and programs and move their education and outreach forward.

YENTSCH-SCHINDLER EARLY CAREER AWARD

HD: Throughout the time I have worked on the issue, it is been rewarding to see the topic of freshwater salinization gain notoriety, especially in the region of North America I live in. Scientifically I am most proud of some of the amazing research carried out by my current and former lab members. Robert Ladwig led a paper in L&O Letters examining the impact of salinization on lake stratification and spring mixing. In my mind it is a perfect example of blending empirical observations, analytical approaches, and detailed simulations to tackle a problem (Ladwig et al. 2023). Linnea Rock carried out an intensive two-year sampling campaign (during covid) to show that lakes fundamentally alter the salinity regimes of downstream rivers (Rock and Dugan 2023). Lindsay Platt is currently wrapping up a project leveraging USGS stream data. Her public workflow is a masterpiece of reproducible research that can be leveraged by others to tackle big water questions.

HD: I certainly try to. I have learned over the years that open science has many benefits. (1) It enhances the quality of science. Transparency allows for increased scrutiny of research findings, by both you and scientific reviewers, which leads to more robust research papers. (2) It saves time, especially for the future-you. Having clean data and code that can be reused and quickly understood streamlines the scientific process. Given the complexity of science these days, independently recreating every step of a project is too time-consuming. Yes, it is critical to know the fundamentals (do not skip that statistics class), but be efficient where you can be. (3) Open science promotes collaboration, especially across disciplines. Some of the coolest science I have seen is people who adapted methods from other disciplines. This is incredibly hard to do without openly sharing resources, ideas, and methods. (4) Not a benefit, just the bottom line. If your data was publicly funded, it should be publicly accessible.

Looking ahead, open science will continue to grow, especially with the upcoming cohort of scientists trained in the principles of open science. Still, it is not easy. It takes time, perseverance, and commitment, and none of us do it perfectly. But ultimately, it democratizes access to knowledge and will drive innovation.