Long before he helped draft federal hazard mitigation legislation in the U.S. Senate, Robby Goldman (PhD, Geology, ‘23) was learning a different lesson as a graduate student: understanding complex problems starts with listening.
When Goldman arrived at Illinois in 2017 to pursue a PhD in the Department of Earth Science & Environmental Change, he planned to study volcanic systems through computational models and geodynamics under the supervision of professor Trish Gregg. Drawn by the department’s interdisciplinary culture, he expected to focus on combining geophysical data with geodynamical simulations to identify the forces that shape the location and timing of eruptions from Pacific Ocean island volcanoes.
Instead, a major eruption from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano in 2018 pushed Goldman to ask a different question: once scientists understand a problem, how do they help people respond to it?
For Goldman, that question carried personal significance. Although he was raised in California, Goldman is Native Hawaiian and regularly visited his relatives in Honolulu growing up. The summer following his fifth-grade year, Goldman also attended a Hawaiian cultural immersion program at Kamehameha Schools, which deepened his appreciation for the overlap between Native Hawaiian knowledge and scientific research. These experiences helped shape Goldman’s interest in learning how scientific information helps communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural hazards, such as eruptions from Hawaii’s volcanoes.
Last year, Goldman completed a two-year Congressional Science Fellowship advising U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii on natural hazard mitigation and science policy. But he traces the foundation for that work back to experiences at Illinois that expanded his understanding of what scientists can contribute beyond research itself.
“One of the things that really stood out to me was the underutilized role of scientists in engaging communities with their science more broadly—not only in communicating the research that they do, but also the value that they bring to society,” Goldman said.
Read more about Robby's journey from grad school to Washington