Julia Parrish is an ecologist and conservation biologist at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

known for her research on seabirds and for her leadership in

citizen science The term citizen science (synonymous to terms like community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is research conducted with participation from the general public, or am ...

. She is an elected fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

Education and career

Parrish has an undergraduate degree from Carnegie-Mellon (1982) where she studied biochemistry and biophysics. While she was an undergraduate student, she spent a period of time at the Duke University Marine Laboratory, which she credits for guiding her towards getting her Ph.D. at Duke University studying the schooling behavior of fish. Parrish moved to the

where she holds the Lowell A. and Frankie L. Wakefield Endowed Professorship.

Research

Parrish's research is a combination of observational research and conservation activities. Her graduate research centered on fish where she examined mucus production by the

Atlantic silverside The Atlantic silverside (''Menidia menidia''), also known as spearing in the northeastern United States, is a small species of fish that is one of the most abundant fish species present in estuarine habitats along the Atlantic coast of North Amer ...

fish and the importance of physical location within

schooling A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of fo ...

groups of fish. Parrish began working on

Tatoosh Island Tatoosh Island is a small island and small group of islands about offshore (northwest) of Cape Flattery, which is on the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Tatoosh is the largest of a small group of islands also often ...

in 1990 after an invitation to the island from a graduate student in Bob Paine's lab. Her work on the island focuses on

common murre The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a Subarctic, circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming ...

s, a seabird that forms dense nesting colonies on the island. She has examined interactions between

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...

s and common murres and noted declines in the common murre population as a result of the recovery of the bald eagles. Parrish has modeled the role of aggregating animals in the survival of organisms and its subsequent implications for

marine protected area A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of the world's seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity ...

s in the conservation of marine species. Parrish's research has linked dead birds found on the beach with changing seawater off California, the presence of

harmful algal bloom A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, sometimes called a red tide in marine environments, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, water deoxygenation, ...

s, and

marine heatwave A marine heatwave is a period of abnormally high sea surface temperatures compared to the typical temperatures in the past for a particular season and region. Marine heatwaves are caused by a variety of drivers. These include shorter term weather ...

s. Through the collection of data from volunteers, Parrish was able to link recent observations of the

by-the-wind sailor ''Velella'' is a monospecific genus of hydrozoa in the family Porpitidae. Its only known species is ''Velella velella'', a cosmopolitan (widely distributed) free-floating hydrozoan that lives on the surface of the open ocean. It is commonly known ...

jellyfish with seawater conditions off the beaches of California.

Citizen science

Parrish founded and directs the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, COASST, a citizen science project started in 1999 that organizes volunteers to gather details about dead birds and marine debris on beaches along the west coast of the United States. Parrish's activities include research into the scale of citizen science projects, the value of in-kind contributions made by volunteers, factors limiting the use of data collected by citizen scientists, and demographic factors leading to the success of data collection by citizen science projects.

Selected publications

* * * *

Awards and honors

*Aldo Leopold Fellow (2006) *Fellow,

Ecological Society of America The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. I ...

(2016) *Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2019) *Lifetime Achievement Award,

Pacific Seabird Group The Pacific Seabird Group (PSG) is an international professional ornithological society based in the US, dedicated to the study and conservation of Pacific seabirds and their environment. The objectives of the Pacific Seabird Group are exclusively ...

(2019) *One of 12 “Champions of Change” honored at

The White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800 whe ...

(2013)

References

External links

* , December 23, 2020 p to 17:36 in video
COASST web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parrish, Julia Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Living people Duke University alumni Carnegie Mellon University alumni University of Washington faculty Women ecologists American ornithologists American marine biologists Conservation biologists Year of birth missing (living people)