Marine Scientist at the University of Rhode Island Honored by the National Park Service

Mary-Jane James-Pirri, a marine research associate at the Graduate School of Oceanography of the University of Rhode Island, was named the winner of the 2012 Award for Natural Resource Research by the National Park Service. She is being honored for her research on salt marsh ecology and related studies at numerous national parks in the northeastern United States.

Dr. James-Pirri typically is engaged in several National Park Service research projects at any given time, but since 2000 she has focused research on horseshoe crab populations on the Cape Cod National Seashore and at several sites on Long Island.

Dr. James-Pirri is a graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She earned a master’s degree at the University of New Hampshire and a Ph.D. in biology at the University of Rhode Island.