Introduction
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) returned to the nation’s capital in 2024, internet hosting its annual assembly on the Walter E. Washington Conference Heart in Washington, DC from December 9–14, 2024. NASA Science upheld its long-standing custom as an AGU associate and exhibitor, leveraging the assembly as a possibility to share NASA’s cutting-edge analysis, information, and expertise with the biggest assortment of Earth and planetary science professionals on the planet. Lots of the estimated 25,000 college students, scientists, and trade personnel who attended the convention visited the NASA Science exhibit, interacting with NASA material consultants as detailed within the essay that follows – see Picture 1. Guests additionally watched dwell Hyperwall displays and picked up NASA Science outreach supplies, such because the 2025 NASA Science Planning Guide.
Highlights from the NASA Science Exhibit
NASA Hyperwall Tales
The NASA Hyperwall has been a focus of the company’s outreach efforts for over 20 years, serving as each a strong storytelling platform and the first car by way of which the general public engages with the award-winning visualizations printed by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) – see Picture 2. Forty-nine NASA mission scientists and program representatives shared NASA science with the general public from the Hyperwall stage throughout AGU24. NASA management shared mission information and outlined upcoming analysis throughout all 5 of the NASA Science divisions: Earth science, planetary science, heliophysics, astrophysics, and organic and bodily sciences – see Photographs 3–8. A catalog of NASA venture scientists and mission representatives, who offered colourful overviews of all the pieces from NASA’s Mars Sample Return to the Parker Solar Probe’s historic flyby of the Solar, delivered further displays.
The whole AGU24 Hyperwall schedule is available at this link. Readers can view YouTube movies of the displays through hyperlinks over the person names within the photograph captions under.
Throughout AGU, NASA additionally celebrated the winners of the 2024 AGU Michael Freilich Student Visualization Competition, an annual competitors honoring former NASA Earth Science Division director Michael Freilich that evokes college students to develop inventive methods for successfully speaking advanced scientific issues – see Picture 9. See the abstract of “Symposium on Earth Science and Applications from Space…” [The Earth Observer, Mar–Apr 2020, Volume 32 Issue 3, 4–18] to be taught extra about Freilich’s profession at NASA and affect on Earth science. A list of the award’s past recipients, courting again to the 2016, is printed on AGU’s web site.
Face-to-face With NASA Consultants
AGU opened its exhibit corridor to the general public at 10:00 AM on December 9. Hundreds of keen attendees poured into the house to interact with exhibit employees, representing a wide range of universities, analysis establishments, and personal organizations from around the globe.
NASA Science welcomed AGU attendees, who gathered inside the perimeter of the exhibit shortly after opening – see Picture 10 – the place NASA employees distributed the 2025 NASA Science Planning Information – see Picture 11.
Attendees filtered by way of the NASA Science sales space by the 1000’s, the place greater than 130 outreach specialists and material consultants from throughout the company had been accessible to share mission-specific science and interface instantly with members of the general public – see Photographs 12–15.
AGU attendees met with venture scientists and consultants at a brand new exhibit, known as “Ask Me Something.” The discussions spanned a wide range of NASA missions, together with Mars Pattern Return, James Webb Space Telescope, and Parker Photo voltaic Probe, with specialists from these and different missions who spoke throughout the periods – see Picture 16. An set up of NASA’s Earth Information Center additionally made an look at AGU24, offering attendees with further alternatives to talk with Earth scientists and be taught extra about NASA analysis – see Picture 17.
2024 SMD Strategic Content material and Integration Assembly
As they’ve carried out for a few years now, employees and management from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Engagement Department convened in Washington, DC on December 8 (the day earlier than the Fall AGU assembly started) to debate company communications and outreach priorities. This annual assembly offered personnel from every of SMD’s scientific divisions a beneficial alternative to spotlight productive methods and initiatives from the earlier calendar 12 months and chart a path for the 12 months forward. In the course of the single-day occasion, staff leaders shared data associated to NASA’s web-modernization efforts, digital outreach methods, and exhibit presence. Roughly 150 in-person and 50 on-line NASA employees joined the hybrid assembly.
After a welcome from Steve Graham [GSFC/GST—NASA Science Support Office Task Leader], who coated assembly logistics, the contributors heard from NASA Headquarters’ SMD Engagement and Communication representatives all through the day.
Amy Kaminski [Engagement Branch Chief], who just lately changed Kristen Erickson on this position, used this chance to extra formally introduce herself to those that won’t know her and share her visions for engagement. Karen Fox [Senior Science Communications Official] mentioned the evolution of communication for SMD missions over the previous decade – transferring from siloed communications a decade in the past that very a lot centered on “my mission,” to a way more cooperation between missions and deal with thematic communications. Following up on Kaminski’s remarks that gave an total imaginative and prescient for engagement, and Fox’s remarks about how having a imaginative and prescient will assist streamline our messaging, Alex Lockwood [Strategic Messaging and Engagement Lead] delved into the nuts and bolts of strategic planning, with deal with using work packages and memorandums of understanding for selling upcoming missions.
After the management set the tone for the assembly, Emily Furfaro [NASA Science Digital Manager] gave a fast tour of lots of NASA’s digital belongings meant to offer contributors an thought of the huge sources accessible to be used. Diana Logreira [NASA Science Public Web Manager] then laid out some ideas to be adopted in creating unified imaginative and prescient for the NASA Science public net expertise.
Within the afternoon, there have been particular person breakout periods for the Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Heliophysics divisions. These sub-meetings had been led by Ellen Grey, Erin Mahoney, and Deb Hernandez, Engagement Leads for Earth Science, Heliophysics, and Planetary Sciences respectively. These breakout periods afforded contributors with a possibility to deal with concepts and objectives particular to their very own divisions for 2025. Within the Earth Science breakout session, contributors heard from different a number of different audio system who mentioned the beats, or content material focus areas, that had been chosen for Earth Science Communications in 2024 – together with oceans and Earth Action (previously often called Utilized Sciences) – and people which have been recognized for 2025: expertise, land science, and continued deal with Earth Motion.
After contributors reconvened from the breakouts, Nicola Fox [Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate] gave a mid-afternoon presentation during which she introduced her perspective on built-in NASA science, which led right into a one-hour “Ask Us” panel with Division Administrators to conclude the assembly. Members included: Mark Clampin [Astrophysics], Lisa Carnell [Biological], Julie Robinson [Earth Science, Deputy], Joe Westlake [Heliophysics], John Gagosian [Joint Agency Satellite], Charles Webb [Planetary Science, Acting].
Based mostly on this assembly, and different communications steering from NASA HQ, a number of basic SMD/Earth Science content material and engagement priorities for 2025 have emerged. They embrace:
Conclusion
The NASA exhibit is a vital element of the company’s presence at AGU, and NASA leverages its massive cohort of scientists who take part within the trade of knowledge and concepts exterior of the exhibit corridor – in plenary conferences, workshops, poster periods, panels, and casual discussions. AGU periods and occasions that featured NASA sources, scientists, and program administrators included the Living with a Star Town Hall, NASA’s Early Career Research Program, NASA’s Sea Level Change Team: Turning Research into Action, and plenty of extra. Click here for the whole checklist of NASA-related occasions at AGU24.
As the ultimate occasion in a busy calendar of annual scientific conferences, AGU is usually a possibility for NASA scientists to publish findings from the earlier 12 months and set objectives for the 12 months forward. Simply as they did in 2024, the company’s sturdy portfolio of missions and packages will proceed to set new information, equivalent to NASA’s Parker Solar Probe pass of the Sun, and conduct elementary analysis within the fields of Earth and house science.
The 2025 AGU annual assembly might be held on the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Conference Heart, in New Orleans, LA, from December 15–19, 2025. See you there.
Nathan Marder
NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart/International Science & Know-how Inc.
nathan.marder@nasa.gov
