Judy Parrish
Judy Parrish
Judy Parrish
Paleoclimatologist
Judith (“Judy”) Totman Parrish is a paleoclimatologist. She studies the environment and climate of the ancient earth prior to the Quaternary period (“Ice Age”).
Judy received her full college education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, earning a B.S in Biology, M.A. in Biology, M.S in Earth Science, and Ph.D. in Earth Science. Following her Ph.D., Judy held a few short-term positions before taking a job as a Research Geologist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, Colorado, where she worked until 1988. She then went on to a faculty position in the Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, where she eventually moved into administration as an Associate Dean. In 2003, she took a position as Professor and Dean at the University of Idaho. She is currently is a Professor Emerita (a research-active, retired faculty member) in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Idaho.
Judy’s primary interest is the environment of pre-Quaternary Earth (Earth before the Pleistocene “Ice Age,” or before about 2.6 million years ago). She focuses on prehistoric patterns of ocean upwelling and their influence on sedimentary rocks and fossils and studies fossils as indicators of ancient climate. She researches climate on the supercontinent Pangaea, a large landmass made up of all the Earth’s continents that existed from about 300 million years ago to about 200 million years ago. She is also interested in high-latitude climates in the Cretaceous Period (about 145 to 66 million years ago), when the Earth was warmer than it is today.
Judy has been involved in studies at locations including Argentina, Alaska, and the western United States. Her research on Earth’s climate history began with creating models and large-scale data analysis, then shifted to field studies on issues raised during the modeling process. This finally led her to study the language used in media portrayals and public discourse on modern-day climate change.
From 2008 to 2009, Judy was President of the Geological Society of America (GSA). She is currently serving as President for the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) Foundation. She has won many awards and honors, including a GSA Distinguished Service Award in 2018.
Daring to Dig Interview
In this video, Judy describes when she came to realize that the numbers of women in geology were increasing, her current activities as a consultant, and how much fun geology and paleontology are.
Selected technical works by Judy Parrish
Nicotra, J., and J.T. Parrish. 2010. Rushing the cure: Temporal rhetorics in global warming discourse. JAC—Rhetoric, Writing, Culture, and Politics 30: 215–237. Link
Parrish, J.T. 2013. A new way of thinking: Revolutions in paleoclimatology in the last 50 years. Pp. 533–548 in M.E. Bickford, ed. The web of geological sciences: Advances, impacts, and interactions. Geological Society of America Special Papers 500. Link
Parrish, J.T., and R.A. Spicer. 1988. Late Cretaceous terrestrial vegetation: A near-polar temperature curve. Geology 16: p. 22–25. Link
Parrish, J.T., M.L. Droser, and D.J. Bottjer. 2002. A Triassic upwelling zone: Lithology, geochemistry, ichnofabrics, and taphonomy of the Shublik Formation, Arctic Alaska, U.S.A. Journal of Sedimentary Research 71. 271–285. Link
Parrish, J.T., and H.J. Falcon-Lang. 2007. Coniferous trees associated with interdune deposits in the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone Formation, Utah, USA:.Palaeontology 50: 829–843. Link
Parrish, J.T., T. Rasbury, M.A. Chan, and S.T. Hasiotis. 2019. Earliest Jurassic U-Pb ages from carbonate deposits in the Navajo Sandstone, southeastern Utah, USA. Geology 47: 1015–1019. Link
Selected commentaries and essays by Judy Parrish
Parrish, J.(J.)T. 2009. A field geologist looks at a digital world. GSA Today 19(1): 4–6. Link
Parrish, J.(J.)T. 2009. Industry is not the enemy. GSA Today 19(7): 11–12. Link
Parrish, J.T., and G.S. Soreghan. 2013. Sedimentary geology and the future of paleoclimate studies. The Sedimentary Record 11(2): 4–10. Link
Further reading
Arctic Plant Fossils [website by B. Spicer, A. Herman, T. Spicer, and J. Yang]. no date. The lost world of the arctic: Paleo-Arctic Fauna. [Informational webpage detailing some of Judy Parrish and collaborators’ work in the arctic.] Link
Sullivan, W. 2005. New thinking on age-old creatures. Tampa Bay Times, 17 October 2005. Link
University of Arizon. 1998. Life flourished when Earth was warmer, scientist says. Science Daily, 15 October 1998. Link
Video & audio content
BBC Horizon: “The mystery of the Jurassic.” Video episode from 2001–2002 season. Link to transcript