Jessica McGlinsey

Jessica McGlinsey, M.Ed., is a marine conservationist, graduate research assistant, project coordinator, and educator based in Southern Maryland, in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. She holds an NAAEE-accredited master’s degree in Environmental Education from Slippery Rock University and is pursuing her PhD in Marine-Estuarine Environmental Sciences at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. Her research examines how climate change is reshaping the future for northern diamondback terrapins, including nesting distribution and site selection, habitat loss from sea level rise and erosion, nesting temperatures & temperature-dependent sex determination, and the species’ behavioral response to shoreline resiliency projects.

A central goal of her work is to show that conservation & climate resilience projects can be designed to protect not only human infrastructure but also the species that depend on these shorelines; a framework with applications from the local to the global scale, and extending to other shoreline-dependent species. Conservation has been the throughline of her career, from her prior work as land conservation manager for Southern Maryland Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) to her research today.

She teaches as an adjunct professor at the College of Southern Maryland and St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and founded GEaRS, an enrichment education program serving homeschool students across Southern Maryland. She also serves as project coordinator for Wave of Plastic, a NOAA-funded marine debris education program developed at UMCES, serving students in Maryland and beyond. A National Geographic Certified Educator and Grantee, her work bridges field research, ecology & climate resiliency, and science communication. Building on Doug Tallamy’s framework, that knowledge generates interest and interest generates compassion, she carries it one step further with the piece she considers most vital: compassion generates action.