Molly Mitchell wins Chico Mendes Prize
Summary
April 13, 2024 | Molly Mitchell received the British Ecological Society's Chico Mendes Prize, awarded biennially to the best Practice Insights article by an early career practitioner in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence.
Full Description
Adapted from the British Ecological Society's announcement of this year's winners.
The Chico Mendes Prize is awarded biennially to the best Practice Insights article by an early career practitioner in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence. The winner is selected by the Senior Editors of the journal.
Molly Mitchell, Assistant Professor and Director of the Professional MA program at William & Mary's School of Marine Science at VIMS was awarded this year’s prize for the paper: ‘A marsh multimodel approach to inform future marsh management under accelerating sea-level rise.’
In the study, Mitchell and her colleagues Karinna Nunez, Julie Herman, Christine Tombleson, and Pam Mason addressed an increasingly common management dilemma—how to make robust decisions for an uncertain future. As sea level rise accelerates, it’s possible that marshes could drown at an accelerating pace, making opportunities for migration critical to maintain their extent. In this case, they adapted a technique used with climate predictions to build an ensemble model of marsh migration, informing a physical and sociological understanding of tidal marshes that can allow for a management framework that incorporates both current and future concerns.
Mitchell said: "I am excited that this award recognizes the role of science in the world and how scientists and practitioners can work together to solve problems and improve our capacity to manage our natural resources."
Marc Cadotte, Editor-in-Chief of Ecological Solutions and Evidence said: "In this article, Mitchell and colleagues combine predictions from five different marsh ecosystem models along with a concerted effort to co-design research methodologies and management recommendations with local stakeholders. The models predicted marsh migration and the stakeholder group assessed value and implemented a decision-making framework to create management recommendations. The inclusion of local stakeholders not only reiterated the value of scientific methodologies, but coupled this with a need to consider social justice by including social and economic spatial layers in land protection and purchase recommendations.
"This article is a superb example of how to bring cutting-edge science into on-the-ground management of an important ecological problem, while ensuring that local perspectives and knowledge contribute to the design of meaningful solutions."