The Geological Society of America (GSA) recently hosted a webinar featuring Dr. Mark Little, immediate past president of GSA, Dr. Harsh Kumar Gupta, president of the Geological Society of India (GSoI), and Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee, a professor of geology and geophysics at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur and a GSA Councilor. The webinar recording is available online, and an edited version of the discussion will be printed in the upcoming December issue of GSA Today. 

Below, Abhijit tells Mark Little about his deep interest in inspiring students, and bringing the GSA and GSoI communities together to make a greater global impact.

Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee

Abhijit Mukherjee: My introduction to GSA happened when I moved from India to the U.S. as a graduate student back in 2001. I didn’t know about professional societies, but that first introduction to GSA kind of became my life-changer, and since then GSA has been my professional home. In the last few years I’ve been serving on Council, in the leadership, on the international committee, and taking the goal forward.

When I decided to come back to India after graduating and working in the U.S. for almost a decade, I thought, you know, in India there are a lot of very bright geology students as well as geoscientists who are professionals working in both academia and industry. However, I could definitely see that there is less outreach, less footprint of these geoscience students and the professionals. So when I got this invitation to start in the leadership of GSA, one of the things I definitely thought about was how can GSA and GSoI can work together, because GSA has this universal and global footprint. I thought it was a natural thing to bring the two societies together, and introduce each other, and try to make a bridge which I think personally would act as a kind of a trigger to grow both societies in a global forum. I think it’s the right time to have the two societies work together for the advancement of science and society.

Note: Abhijit Mukherjee is participating at the upcoming GSA Connects 2023 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (15-18 October). His research focuses on the declining trends of groundwater across the most populous areas of the world, and the resulting threat to drinking water availability and food security. The Abhijit Mukherjee Group conducts research that ranges from deep academic focus to policy-oriented studies involving pressing issues such as the impact of climate, human policy, and food production on groundwater security. To learn more, mark your calendar to attend the following sessions at GSA Connects: 

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