UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Geographer and climate scientist William Easterling recently returned from a four-year position with the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he saw from a different perspective the complex and intertwining issues that have encompassed his decades-long career.
“I was excited by the opportunity to take my skills to Washington, D.C., into a vastly different environment to lead what is the premier funding source for basic curiosity-driven research in the world,” Easterling said. “It came as there were so many pressing issues that require basic research to find solutions. Quantum science, artificial intelligence to name a few but, for me, understanding and responding to climate change was at the top of the list. I couldn’t help but be impressed by the amount of scientific bandwidth in the building with me at NSF that is effectively promoting huge challenges from the fabrication of life-like systems and understanding the mechanics of the brain in biology to imagining the future of work in a super-charged cyberspace. This is an exciting time to be a scientist.”
Easterling, professor of geography and former dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, served as assistant director and head of the Directorate for Geosciences with the NSF from 2017 to 2021. There, he oversaw federally funded research directives in areas that impact climate change, natural hazards, threats to populated areas and in answering fundamental questions about global processes.
Easterling, who is an expert on how climate change is likely to affect the global food supply, led a directorate of three divisions and a major office — Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, Earth Sciences, Ocean Sciences, and the Office of Polar Programs. His mission, in part, was working with other NSF leaders to lay out a research vision and narrative that facilitates a continuous stream of new knowledge that helps keeps the nation healthy, secure and competitive.
One area where Easterling left his mark was in incorporating the human component as part of a holistic understanding of the earth system. Integrating human systems into physical and biological earth systems is something he’s done throughout his career, first with his own research as a geographer and later as the inaugural director of Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment.
Easterling said now more than ever it’s important to understand that humans have an impact on these earth systems and vice versa. There is not one square centimeter of the Earth’s surface where there has been no measurable trace of human activity. Climate change, combined with rapid population and infrastructure growth, are leading to unprecedented natural disasters, particularly along the nation’s coastlines that are home to nearly 100 million residents. One cannot fully understand and predict the earth system without explicitly incorporating humans as change agents, he said. Easterling’s experiences led to a new graduate seminar at Penn State.
“Making those kinds of connections between people and their environment explicit is something I wanted to achieve at NSF,” Easterling said. “So that’s the tenor of the programs that were initiated under my leadership.”
Easterling worked to involve other directorates so that the NSF integrated and leveraged its expertise on the important earth system questions that that we face today, both scientifically and in terms of impact and risk to society.
He said the NSF is keyed in on climate change because the challenges are both pressing and inevitable. A swift and global response to curbing greenhouse gas emissions will make those challenges less severe, he said, but it won’t eliminate them. The Earth’s climate is likely committed to experience significant warming even in the unlikely case that all greenhouse gas emissions were suddenly to cease. Much of the research being funded by NSF is aimed at responding to unabated climate change in ways that are seamless and the least disruptive of our way of life.
One challenge of the post, Easterling said, was coupling immediate research needs while forecasting those needs decades into the future. He made decisions on which marine research vessels, research aircraft and sophisticated instruments to greenlight; many were projects with completion dates more than a decade away. Thinking about the nation’s scientific needs more than a decade ahead is necessary because of the long lead times required to gain congressional approval to plan, fund, construct and test major new infrastructure investments. Planning for three new Regional Class Research Vessels to support ocean research began in the early 2000s; the first of the three vessels is scheduled to be completed next year.
Easterling also aided efforts to improve diversity in the earth sciences. Since his leadership career began, he said, limited progress has been made in gender equity, but racial inclusion is still lacking.
“Not only do we have to keep on trying to diversify our disciplines, but we need to do it smartly,” Easterling said.
The NSF recently established a program that encourages university groups to reach out to communities of color in grassroots fashion to help recruit not only minority students into the earth sciences but to involve those students’ parents and mentors in the recruitment process.
“Even if year-to-year progress is measured in inches, we must be committed for the long-haul,” Easterling said.
Taking a community-wide approach, Easterling said, will reap more rewards than simply recruiting bright students.
“That holistic approach is having a positive impact,” Easterling said. “This is an investment that we must maintain for decades into the future. And I think it’s a problem that we’ll be working on for decades in the earth sciences, if not beyond.”