By NOAA Research,

To celebrate Women’s History Month, we asked women throughout NOAA Research who make lasting impacts in scientific research, leadership, and support from the field to the office to share how their work contributes to NOAA’s mission of Climate Resilience and preparing for a Climate-Ready Nation. This article highlights an interview with Dr. Samantha Wills, a research scientist at University of Washington Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES) and NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). She works in the NOAA Ocean Climate Stations group led by Dr. Meghan Cronin, and uses novel Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicles to collect observations over remote regions of the tropical Pacific Ocean. These observations allow her to study mesoscale air-sea variability associated with atmospheric cold pool phenomena over the tropical ocean.

Our conversation follows:

What does climate resilience or climate-ready nation mean to you? What would you want people to know about NOAA’s work on climate resilience?

To me, the idea of a climate-ready nation is analogous to a user of a daily weather forecast. The purpose of that weather forecast is to provide a user with information that may alter their day-to-day decision making, such as adjusting a picnic due to impending rain, or packing an umbrella for the commute home. However, it is up to the user to decide whether or not to heed the forecast (which doesn’t always pan out) and prepare themselves to handle an obstacle to their daily routine. In other words, the weather forecast gives the user a chance to get ahead of a potential problem, and not behind one.

And that is the crux of a climate-ready nation – utilizing the best available information to make informed decisions and prepare for future obstacles to the nation’s well-being. Climate change is one such obstacle. NOAA’s contribution to climate resilience is to provide the best possible information to address impacts due to climate change by supporting scientific research aimed at understanding Earth’s complex climate system, which includes the atmosphere, land, ocean, ice, and living organisms.

What projects or research are you working on now, and how does your work contribute to climate resilience?

The ocean and atmosphere form a closely coupled system, and our ability to derive information from the ocean can help us to predict changes to climate and weather patterns across the globe, such as done for the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Unfortunately, compared to land, which only covers ~30% of the Earth’s surface, observations over the ocean are few and far between. I have the rare advantage of working with an emerging technology, uncrewed surface vehicles, that has the potential to push ocean exploration to the next level. Our team is currently exploring the utility of this new technology and its potential for improving the Tropical Pacific Observing System. My research utilizes air-sea observations collected during field campaigns to remote (i.e., far from any landmass), under-sampled regions of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean to better understand local scales of air-sea interaction and variability.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I most enjoy working in public service. I believe that science is the pursuit of knowledge and truth, not profit, and I am glad that we push to make our research freely accessible and transparent. I hope that my contributions to the field will have a positive impact on society, and that is what drives me to keep pushing forward, even when the work gets frustrating.

What challenges have you faced as a woman in your career/field and how have you overcome them?

I recall a casual conversation I had with a professor during my time as an undergraduate. We were discussing opportunities post-graduation, such as my interest in attending graduate school in pursuit of a PhD. The professor made an off-handed comment (not maliciously) about how women tend not to get as far in graduate school because their family responsibilities will distract them or get in their way, and it felt as if he was preparing me for that inevitability; like I shouldn’t waste my time. Needless to say, I did not appreciate his insight. Instead, the experience only served to solidify my decision to pursue a doctorate while simultaneously fueling my fire to prove him (and anyone else who dared to doubt me) wrong. So I leaned on those, both professional and personal, who most supported me to achieve my dreams, and here I am now, Dr. Samantha Wills!

What drew you to your current career or field?