RE Log - Spring 2020

12 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2020 in Vietnam. On Kapingamarangi, Broad saw clear signs of sea level rise in the saltwater intrusion affecting the taro gardens, and the hardships caused by climate variability on the tiny island’s populations. “I was always as interested in the human dimension and equity aspects as the natural sciences,” he said. “When you see these problems in the context of real communities struggling with them – even though there is little scientific debate about the causes of the problems – you realize it’s not an information deficit, it’s a motivation deficit.” Broad, who is married to University of Miami professor Amy Clement and the father of Jasper Broad ’22 and Lincoln Broad ’26 , urges his BROAD Lab students to follow his example, if not his specific, winding, turbulent career path. He challenges them to seek solutions for wicked problems, urging them to complement the admittedly important science on the surface with research on policy approaches, cognition and behavior. His students describe him as demanding, crazy and inspiring. Now a post-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, Annie Brett traveled to Miami from Harvard University to pursue her PhD under Broad after speaking to him by phone. “He was focused on this idea of interdisciplinary connections,” said Brett, who simultaneously earned her JD and will assume a job as a law professor at the University of Florida this summer. “How important it is that when you do science, you connect it to the real world, and not just in a hand-waving way. He wants you to think of more creative ways of conveying scientific knowledge to the public.” Said Shireen Rahimi, a current student whose dissertation on human interactions with invasive lionfish on the island of Abaco includes a book, film and photography: “His conviction is that a good scientist needs to be able to write clearly, with minimum jargon and maximum lucidity. Throughout the program, we’ve always had to have elevator pitches ready. There no use in being a scientist if you can’t communicate what you are doing.” “He really encourages his students to think outside the box,” said Stacy Aguilera-Peterson, who earned an undergraduate degree at Stanford before joining Broad’s research team to study marine resource management in the face of climate variability. She earned her PhD in 2017 and is now Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “After five years of working with him, I feel like I’m an independent scientist. I can do anything on my own.” That’s just what Broad wants to hear. He never aspired to teach as much as to put his students in a position to learn, and he continues to be motivated by learning from them. He is flat- out uncomfortable at the idea of being a source of knowledge. What he hopes to pass on is his yearning to explore. “I’m not embarrassed to say, there was no plan for my life,” he said. “I still have no plan. The goal is to prepare yourself with enough skills that you can take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Don’t spend too much time looking back. “Students need to push themselves out of their comfort zones. Explore as much as possible. Expose yourself to new things. If you play it safe all the time, you don’t get the big payoffs.” Photo by Rebecca Hale/National Geographic Society.