Despite being one of the top performers for all 6 years of high school, I still believed science was 'not cool', 'too difficult' and required too much 'math or intelligence' for me. I felt I should be a teacher, lawyer, or doctor, which were respectable fields to be in. (1/8)

I would have believed I could be a scientist if someone who looked like me told me I could. And they did during my last year of high school, which is partly why I became an earth scientist. Representation and mentorship matters. (2/8)

High schoolers develop an idea for who a scientist is, and they share it amongst each other. These ideas are sometimes not shared with teachers who could correct misconceptions. Some teachers don't have the background to. Representation & mentorship matters. (3/8)

The ideas concerning 'who a scientist' is come from many places. I suspect television shows, movies, and established scientists have the most effect. This underscores the importance of scicomm. For earth science ... I believe we have a marketing problem. (4/8)

Why a marketing problem? Ppl still believe we study rocks, earthquakes, or weather. They don't understand why studying 'rocks' is important or luxurious. They think you have to be smart, esoteric, and white to study EQs. For the weather, you have to be lucky to get on tv. (5/8)

They have other ideas of course. This is a general picture and an incomplete one. When parents ask their kids what they want to be or plant ideas in their kids' minds, earth scientists rarely come into play. We should figure out how to change this and we are trying. (6/8)

After finishing the things on my plate, I will select JEDI efforts directly related to how we market earth science, taking it from a business perspective. I will get a chance to use my 3/4th of a Business (marketing) degree from undtergrad to help do this. I (7/8)

I share this because so many people are doing JEDI work now. They will ask, why are the efforts not working. And, one of my answers to that is .... we aren't good marketers of the discipline and we need to work on making the discipline more inclusive. (8/8)

I should add, Geography was my favorite subject the entire time and it never crossed my mind that I should do that. Instead, doctor, lawyer, business man, engineer maybe?