Dr. Patrick Megonigal is a Senior Scientist and Director of Research at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He is an ecosystem ecologist with research interests in carbon cycling and greenhouse gas dynamics, particularly as they relate to wetlands and forest responses to global climate change. Dr. Megonigal directs the Smithsonian’s Global Change Research Wetland, a long-term research site dedicated to understanding the stability of tidal wetlands faced with accelerated sea level rise, and biogeochemical exchange between wetlands and estuaries. He is the Founding Director of the Coastal Carbon Research Coordination Network, a global community committed to sharing data and expertise to accelerate the pace of discovery in coastal wetland carbon science. Dr. Megonigal is a founding a member of the International Scientific Working Group on Blue Carbon convened by Conservation International and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an initiative dedicated to conserving coastal wetlands for their capacity to store carbon and provide co-benefits. He is Chief Scientist of COMPASS-FME, a DOE-sponsored program to advance the development Earth System models that capture coastal processes at the terrestrial-aquatic interface, and he holds a joint appointment at Pacific Northwest National Lab which leads COMPASS-FME. Pat Megonigal has authored over 175 peer-reviewed publications and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Ecological Society of America, Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and Society of Wetland Scientists.