Topic:  Adaptation and Livable Communities Series – using science to advance community priorities   Guest & Organization:    Raj Pandya directs the American Geophysical Union (AGU)’s Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX). TEX helps volunteer scientists and community leaders work together to use science, especially Earth and space science, to advance community priorities related to sustainability, resilience, disaster risk reduction, and environmental justice.   Raj’s work invites everyone to be part of guiding and doing science, especially people from historically marginalized communities, so that science can contribute to a world where all people and all creatures can thrive, now and in the future.   Raj chairs the National Academies committee on “Designing Citizen Science to Support Science Learning” and serves on the boards for Public Lab and the Anthropocene Alliance.  He was a founding member of the board of the Citizen Science Association and has helped lead education and diversity-related activities for the American Meteorological Society. As part of TEX, Raj helped launch the Resilience Dialogues – a public-private partnership that uses facilitated online dialogues to advance community resilience.   Formerly, Raj led Spark Science Education and SOARS, both part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). While at UCAR, he led a team that worked with Navrongo Health Research to Centre using weather data to better manage meningitis in Africa. He also co-hosted, with indigenous leaders, UCAR’s first conference on indigenous knowledge and climate science “Planning for Seven Generations”. Prior to joining UCAR, Raj served as a faculty member at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.    Raj got his Ph.D. from the University of Washington exploring how large thunderstorms grow and sustain themselves.   Resources:   American Geophysical Union’s Thriving Earth Exchange Resilience Dialogues California Adaptation Forum – Register for California’s Premier Adaptation Gathering taking place in Sacramento, CA on August 27-29, 2018! Local Government Commission