Julia K. Parrish

Julia Parrish is the Wakefield Endowed Professor in the University of Washington (UW) School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Associate Dean within the College of the Environment. Her citizen science program, the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), now over 20 years old, monitors 1,000 km of beaches from the North Slope of Alaska to northern California. Julia and her teams have melded studies of fish and seabirds and worked at the interface of science, management and policy in wholly original ways. Across two decades, Julia has transformed 4,000 COASST volunteers into passionate ecological stewards who have gone on to conduct media interviews, write editorials, lead tribal youth interns, and rope in their mothers, children, and grandparents for multi-generational dead bird surveys. Throughout her four-decades-long scientific career, Julia has worked endlessly toward the linked goals of advancing science and the diversity of scientists. She has supervised 25 graduate students and postdocs, and incorporated numerous research coordinators, undergraduate interns, and volunteers in her team. Of note are her special efforts to encourage and mentor female students and interns in science: 9 female graduate students, 10 female research coordinators, and nearly 200 female undergraduate interns. In total, this team has authored over 100 publications, some of which fall within the top 1% of ecology/environment papers.

For exemplary contributions to marine ecology, citizen science, academic excellence, and diversity in all forms, the Pacific Seabird Group honors Julia K. Parrish with a Lifetime Achievement Award.