A University of Washington School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) graduate and senior research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station was recently selected for the 2019 Ambassador Award given annually by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Connie Millar was one of five people selected for this year’s award by AGU, the world’s largest organization of Earth and space scientists, in recognition for outstanding contributions to one or more of the following areas: societal impact, service to the Earth and space community, scientific leadership, and promotion of talent/career pool.

Millar holds a bachelor’s degree in forest science from UW SEFS and earned her master’s degree in wildland resources science as well as her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California.

Among Millar’s most recent achievements, her 2007 paper “Climate Change and Forests of the Future: Managing in the Face of Uncertainty” was recognized by the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in 2015 as “one of the most notable papers ever published” in an ESA journal. In Science in 2015, “Temperate Forest Health in an Emerging Era of Mega-disturbance,” Millar and co-author Nate Stephenson outline a shift from managing for resilience to manage landscapes that are beginning to transform from forests to shrublands or grasslands in the coming decades.

As a pioneer in multidisciplinary research, Millar founded and has fostered collaborations through interdisciplinary groups such as the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT) and the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA), to provide a foundation for needed guidance for forest managers.