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Maria Carmen Lemos

Professor
Sustainability and Development
Climate + Energy
lemos@umich.edu
(734)-764-9315
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About

Maria Carmen Lemos' broad research interests are related to climate adaptation and the role of knowledge in building adaptive capacity.  She is particularly interested in understanding: (a) the co-production of science and decision-making and the creation of actionable knowledge; (b) the intersection between development and climate, especially concerning the relationship between anti-poverty programs and risk management; (c) the use of climate information in building adaptive capacity in different sectors (e.g. drought planning, water management, agriculture, and urban planning); and (d) the impact of technocratic decision-making on issues of democracy and equity.

Lemos was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR5) and the Fourth US National Climate Assessment (NCA4), contribute to IPCC-AR4, and has served in a number of the US National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences committees including Restructuring Federal Climate Research to Meet the Challenges of Climate Change (2007 and 2009), America Climate Choice Science Panel (2010) and the Board on Environmental Change and Society (2008-2014) and the Council Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)—(2011-13).

Publications

  • Lemos, M. C., K. S. Wolske, L. V. Rasmussen, J. C. Arnott, M. Kalcic and C. J. Kirchhoff (2019). "The Closer, the Better? Untangling Scientist–Practitioner Engagement, Interaction, and Knowledge Use." Weather, Climate, and Society 11(3): 535-548. 
  • Moss, R. H., S. Avery, K. Baja, M. Burkett, A. M. Chischilly, J. Dell, P. A. Fleming, K. Geil, K. Jacobs, A. Jones, K. Knowlton, J. Koh, M. C. Lemos, J. Melillo, R. Pandya, T. C. Richmond, L. Scarlett, J. Snyder, M. Stults, A. M. Waple, J. Whitehead, D. Zarrilli, B. M. Ayyub, J. Fox, A. Ganguly, L. Joppa, S. Julius, P. Kirshen, R. Kreutter, A. McGovern, R. Meyer, J. Neumann, W. Solecki, J. Smith, P. Tissot, G. Yohe and R. Zimmerman (2019). "Evaluating Knowledge to Support Climate Action: A Framework for Sustained Assessment. Report of an Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate Assessment." Weather, Climate, and Society 11(3): 465-487. 

  • US Fourth National Climate Assessment. Angel, J., C. Swanston, B.M. Boustead, K.C. Conlon, K.R. Hall, J.L. Jorns, K.E. Kunkel, M.C. Lemos, B. Lofgren, T.A. Ontl, J. Posey, K. Stone, G. Takle, and D. Todey, 2018: Midwest. In Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II[Reidmiller, D.R., C.W. Avery, D.R. Easterling, K.E. Kunkel, K.L.M. Lewis, T.K. Maycock, and B.C. Stewart (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 872–940. doi: 10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH21 

  • Trueblood, D., S. Almazán-Casali, J. Arnott, M. Brass, M. C. Lemos, K. Matso, J. Read, L. Vaccaro and J. Wondolleck (2019). "Advancing Knowledge for Use in Coastal and Estuarine Management: Competitive Research in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System." Coastal Management 47(3): 337-346. 

  • Lemos, M. C., J. Arnott, N. M. Ardoin, K. Baja, A. Bednarek, A. Dewulf, C. Fieseler, K. Goodrich, K. Jagannathan, N. Klenk, K. J. Mach, A. M. Meadow, R. Meyer, R. Moss, L. Nichols, K. D. Sjostrom, M. Stults, E. Turnhout, C. Vaughan, G. Wong-Parodi and C. Wyborn (2018). "To co-produce or not to co-produce." Nature Sustainability VOL 1: 722–724. 

  • Lemos, M. C., H. Eakin, L. Dilling and J. Worl (2018). "Social Sciences, Weather, and Climate Change." Meteorological Monographs 59: 26.21-26.25. 

  • Eakin, H., T. A. Muñoz-Erickson and M. C. Lemos (2018). "Critical Lines of Action for Vulnerability and Resilience Research and Practice: Lessons from the 2017 Hurricane Season." Journal of Extreme Events 05(02n03): 1850015. 

  • Bedran-Martins, A. M., M. C. Lemos & A. Philippi (2018) Relationship between subjective wellbeing and material quality of life in face of climate vulnerability in NE Brazil. Climatic Change, 147, 283-297. 

  • Haigh, T., V. Koundinya, C. Hart, J. Klink, M. Lemos, A. S. Mase, L. Prokopy, A. Singh, D. Todey and M. Widhalm (2018). "Provision of Climate Services for Agriculture: Public and Private Pathways to Farm Decision-Making." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 99(9): 1781-1790. 

  • Tian, Q. and M. C. Lemos (2018) Household Livelihood Differentiation and Vulnerability to Climate Hazards in Rural China. World Development, 108, 321-331. 

  • Tian, Q., L. Jiang, M. Lemos & S. Qi (2018) Interactions of social, natural, and technological subsystems and synergy between development and adaptation to floods around Poyang Lake. Annals of GIS, 1-12.

  • Lemos, M. C. (2015). Usable climate knowledge for adaptive and co-managed water governance. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 12: 48-52.

  • Agrawal, A. and M. C. Lemos (2015). "Adaptive development." Nature Climate Change 5(3): 185-187.

  • Haigh, T., L. W. Morton, M.C. Lemos, L. Prokopy, J. Angel and Y.J. Lo (2015) "Agricultural Advisors as Climate Information Intermediaries: Exploring Differences in Capacity to Communicate Climate" Weather, Climate and Society, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 83-93. 

  • Kalafatis, S. E., M. C. Lemos, Y.-J. Lo and K. A. Frank (2015). "Increasing information usability for climate adaptation: The role of knowledge networks and communities of practice." Global Environmental Change 32: 30-39.

  • Prokopy, L. S., J. S. Carlton, J. G. Arbuckle Jr, T. Haigh, M. C. Lemos, A. S. Mase, N. Babin, M. Dunn, J. Andresen and J. Angel (2015). "Extension′ s role in disseminating information about climate change to agricultural stakeholders in the United States." Climatic Change: 1-12. 

Research
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA – grant for: Great Lakes Climate & Assessments—GLISA.” PI 2015-20. $4M
  • National Science Foundation—NSF—grant for: “Water Science Climate—WSC.” Co-PI (PI Anna Michalak). 2011-2015. $5 M 
  • National Science Foundation—NSF—grant for: Collaborative Research: The relative importance of generic vs. specific capacity in addressing drought vulnerability in NE Brazil. PI (Co-PIs Don Nelson and Hallie Eakin). 2010-2014. $510,00.  
  • United States Department of Agriculture—USDA—grant for: U2U: Useful to Usable: Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers. Co-PI. (PI Linda Prokopy). 2012-2017 $ 5M. 
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA – grant for: NERRS Science Collaborative Program. Co-PI (PI Don Scavia). 2014-2019. $20M 
  • National Science Foundation. Coastal SEES: Enhancing sustainability in coastal communities threatened by harmful algal blooms by advancing and integrating environmental and socio-economic modeling, PI Steiner, co-PIs Lemos, Scavia, Kirchhoff, Obenaour, 2016-2019. $1.9M
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA – grant for: Co-producing Climate Knowledge and Sustained Engagement in the Great Lakes in Support of Stormwater Management Adaptation. PI, $175K, 2018-19.
Education

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (political science)

MS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (political science)

BS, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil (economics)

Affiliations

Advisory Board—Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Universityof Michigan, 2005-present
Advisory Board, Research Application Laboratory (RAL), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), (2013-Present)
The National Academies/National Research Council Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change/Board of Environment Change and Society, (2008-Present)
The National Academies/National Research Council Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) (2011-13)
Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute Executive Committee. 2012-present
Global Engagement Committee (SNRE), 2013-2015, Chair
UM Eisenberg Civic Engagement Committee, 2017-present
CIGLR Scientific Committee 2017-present

In the News
Great Lakes
October 15, 2021

Federal funding extends Great Lakes climate adaptation research and engagement at U-M, MSU

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University have been awarded $5.4 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to...

Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Network
March 16, 2021

Gala Learning Case: Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Network

Co-producing climate information improves Great Lakes cities' adaptation to climate change, but how can these partnerships be sustained long-term? One successful model...

How governments actively accept and resist a World Heritage ‘in danger’ listing
July 20, 2020

How governments actively accept and resist a World Heritage ‘in danger’ listing

A study published July 20 in the journal Nature Sustainability finds that governments worldwide have repeatedly resisted the placement of 41 UNESCO World Heritage sites...

great lakes sediment
June 16, 2020

Climate model consumer reports help users make informed decisions about climate information

ANN ARBOR—A new article published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society aims to improve the accessibility and usability of climate models to climate...

April 1, 2020

NEW Special Journal Issue: Making Knowledge More "Actionable" for Sustainability

Contact: James Arnott, jamesa@agci.org The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world in unimaginable ways and at a rapid pace. The crisis has revealed, very...

In the Media
12/06/2022
Maria Carmen Lemos
Climate techno-fixes keep planet on ‘palliative care’ (Mirage News Australia)
03/30/2021
Maria Carmen Lemos
In flooded Michigan neighborhoods, who should pay for sea walls? (Bridge Michigan)
09/01/2020
Maria Carmen Lemos
Science and Policy Collide During the Pandemic (The Scientist)
07/21/2020
Maria Carmen Lemos
New research reveals how Australia and other nations play politics with World Heritage sites (The Conversation)
04/01/2019
Maria Carmen Lemos
Climate change will strain Michigan infrastructure, say experts
12/01/2018
Maria Carmen Lemos
Climate change will be costly, especially for at-risk communities
11/01/2018
Maria Carmen Lemos
UM Researchers helped write National Climate Assessment, focused on impact in Great Lakes
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