Leveraging Expertise Across Disciplines to Respond to Societal Needs through the NSF NCAR Early Career Faculty Innovator Program

The U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) Early Career Faculty Innovator Program has served as a model for convergence research since its inception in 2018. The Innovator Program funds faculty in the social, policy, and behavioral sciences to co-develop interdisciplinary and actionable research projects in partnership with scientists and engineers at NSF NCAR. One of the program’s central goals is to accelerate innovation and discovery in Earth system science and improve the creation and delivery of scientific information that is responsive to societal needs. Across three cohorts of faculty and their students, the program has supported a total of 27 projects on topics including, but not limited to, air quality assessment, understanding of coastal population migration due to flooding, resilience planning for compounding weather and climate hazards, risk communication, and wildfire adaptation measures. In this talk, we will present the program’s framework, as well as the challenges and successes in enabling collaborations between scientists of different disciplines, in the professional development of students and in the co-development of projects with and for communities. We will also highlight examples of methods and outcomes from various projects such as community engagement efforts and use of visualizations to communicate climate impacts.