Molly Mitchell, a researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, received the Early Career Leadership Award from the US CLIVAR Program for her efforts to develop and share sea-level forecasts and other planning tools with coastal risk managers and emergency responders in Virginia and the mid-Atlantic region. US CLIVAR – Climate Variability and Predictability – is the U.S. component of the International CLIVAR Program, one of the four core projects of the United Nations’ World Climate Research Programme.
Dr. Mitchell was honored at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Her research focuses on understanding, predicting, and responding to shifts in coastal resources due to the interaction between sea-level rise and human-driven modifications to the shoreline.
Dr. Mitchll stated that “I’m honored to receive this recognition. The uncertainty of the magnitude and rate of sea-level rise makes it difficult to incorporate into planning and can affect our understanding of how to best manage our natural resources and human landscapes. My work tries to place reasonable limits on the uncertainty and convey this information in a way that can feed into a decision-making framework.”
Dr. Mitchell holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and environmental science, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in marine science, all from the College of William and Mary.