Benjamin Drummond Julia Parrish
Posted under: Environment , Honors and Awards , Research , Science , UW and the Community. Julia Parrish was one of 12 "champions of change” invited to share their ideas on public engagement in science and science literacy June 25 at the White House. Parrish , a University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences and associate dean of the College of the Environment, founded a citizen-scientist organization in 1991 to document what's normal and what's in flux on our coasts by counting seabird carcasses brought in on the tide. The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team , or COASST, has grown from 12 volunteers to a citizen force 850 strong, working from California to Alaska. Parrish says the team was born out of the realization that "scientists alone can't begin to document what's normal, let alone how fast things are changing. We need a willing army to make that happen. In short, we need citizens - the locals who watch, and know, and love their backyards, their environment. The data collected has been used to establish critical baselines for sources of seabird mortality ranging from oil spills to changing climate.
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