Dr. Clark-Wolf receives Cozzarelli Honor from National Academy of Sciences

The Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has selected a paper by T. J. Clark-Wolf, assistant professor in the department of Wildland Resources, as a finalist for the prestigious Cozzarelli Prize for 2023.

The paper won the honor in the category Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, and was one of just twelve papers to be recognized as outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Papers were chosen from more than 3,000 research articles that appeared in the journal last year and represent the six broadly defined classes under which the NAS is organized. 

Clark-Wolf and coauthors published on the topic of the climate presses and pulses mediating the decline of a migratory predator -- Magellanic penguins. Using an unprecedented 38-year dataset monitoring 53,959 penguins, they showed for the first time that the presses and pulses of climate change mediate the rate of population decline by differentially impacting different life stages. They also found that climate presses and pulses can work both synergistically and antagonistically to affect animal population persistence, necessitating the need to examine both processes in concert. The work contributes to the body of knowledge about interactions between ecological effects of long-term changes and extreme events.

The annual Cozzarelli Prize acknowledges papers that reflect scientific excellence and originality. The award was established in 2005 as the Paper of the Year Prize and was renamed in 2007 to honor late PNAS Editor-in-Chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli. The 2023 awardees will be recognized at an awards ceremony during the NAS Annual Meeting in April 2024.