Bio

Dr. Grace Molino is a Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center postdoctoral fellow. Grace is part of a national cohort of fellows leading regional research projects related to the future of species’ range shifts as part of the Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral (CAP) Fellows Program. Grace’s scientific training combines large-scale, remotely sensed data products with field surveys to examine biological, physical and anthropogenic drivers of ecosystem shifts with climate change. Her current work at the NW CASC, in collaboration with management partners, examines coastal squeeze of priority ecosystems and species with sea level rise in the Pacific Northwest.

Prior to joining the NW CASC, Grace earned her doctorate in marine science with a sub-concentration in marine policy from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the College of William & Mary. During her time in Virginia, she developed predictions of potential marsh migration area in the Chesapeake Bay under future sea level rise scenarios for state agencies and worked with farmers to study how infrastructure built in response to saltwater intrusion might impact the resilience of future salt marshes. Before that, she worked at the USGS on Cape Cod developing geospatial methods to assess drivers of upland conversion to marsh. Grace completed a Fulbright at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands where she studied natural and nature-based flood defense methods.

Grace has a bachelor’s in geology-biology from Brown University and when not in the office, can be found on the coast or in the mountains looking at interesting rocks, cycling or trying out a new recipe.