New science organization for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

June 2, 2021

University Relations

A new national organization, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Geosciences, launched last month. The group is the result of months of planning and collaboration among researchers at institutions across the country, including the UAF Geophysical Institute.

Kitrea Takata-Glushkoff, a graduate student at the GI studying sea ice knowledge and co-production in the Beringia region, has been involved with the organization since its inception. While working remotely in California during her first year, Takata-Glushkoff co-founded the student section of AAPIiG with Caleb Walcott, a graduate student at the University of Buffalo. Together they developed communication strategies and helped lay out future events to help provide a community for students in the organization.

“I saw a need for more networking between students, so I reached out to Caleb, and we started the student branch within the larger AAPIiG group,” said Takata-Glushkoff.

The idea for a group that could help bring together geoscientists of Asian descent working in the U.S. had been floating around for a few years. But in 2020 the need for such a group took on new urgency and importance with the rise in hate crimes directed towards Asians and Asian Americans, social unrest with the death of George Floyd and widespread isolation due to the pandemic.

These events spurred Christine Chen, Daniel Ibarra and Kimberly Lau, all from different academic institutions, to coalesce and lay the groundwork for AAPIiG, which had its first virtual gathering at the 2020 American Geophysical Union conference in December.

“There were some 70 Asian American and Pacific Islander geoscientists on a call in that first meeting,” said Takata-Glushkoff. “It might seem minor, but there’s a lot of power in seeing other people who look like you in the field that you’re entering.”

Takata-Glushkoff reflected on how that experience was especially important for Asian American and Pacific Islander students and early career geoscientists, including those studying in the U.S. from other countries, who might often feel isolated or lack a robust community of peers from similar backgrounds with whom to discuss their experiences.

To help bridge that gap, Takata-Glushkoff and Walcott organized monthly virtual mixers where student AAPIiG members can meet. AAPIiG also hosts a Slack channel to facilitate conversation among members at various career stages.

“A lot of it isn’t just specific to Asian Americans in geosciences,” said Takata-Glushkoff. “It’s also about finding geoscience opportunities and thinking about what it’s like being an Asian American in America, regardless of the geoscience side. So there are a lot of dimensions in which it’s really helpful to have a network like this.”

AAPIiG officially launched in May 2021, coinciding with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The group kicked off the inauguration with the first in a series of virtual roundtable discussions hosted by experts across the country from a variety of geoscience disciplines and held a screening of the 2013 documentary "Model Minority: Do the Math," featuring a conversation with one of the filmmakers.

The next round of interactive discussions will take place virtually from 2-3:30 p.m. Alaska time, Wednesday, June 2. The meeting will feature conversations with and among four geoscientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the Stable Isotope Ecosystem Laboratory of the University of California Merced, DePaul University and UCLA.

While the organization was specifically created to provide a space for Asian and Pacific Islander geoscientists in the U.S., the group also hopes to foster dialogue within the broader geoscience community as a whole. Anyone in the geosciences who’d like to learn more about the issues facing Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and how to be an ally are welcome and encouraged to join the public events. You can also sign up for the AAPIiG listserv, which features group announcements, job openings and opportunities.

You can read the full event description and register to attend here. To learn more about AAPIiG and the resources they offer, visit the organization’s website and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

The AAPIiG logo was designed by Caroline Juang. The logo represents a combination of different Earth science disciplines as well as AAPIiG's specific mission — each quadrant contains a letter from "AAPI."