Emily Pappo is the 2023 Schmink Outstanding Dissertation Award recipient!

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Emily Pappo is the 2023 winner of the Marianne Schmink Outstanding Dissertation Award from UF’s Tropical Conservation and Development Program.

Dr. Pappo received her PhD in Interdisciplinary Ecology in Spring 2023 from School of Natural Resources and Environment under the supervision of Dr. S. Luke Flory (Chair) and Dr. Chris H. Wilson (co-Chair). The outstanding dissertation award was established in 2010 in recognition of Dr. Marianne Schmink, former Director of the TCD Program for her significant and transformative contributions to graduate education, the Center for Latin American Studies and the TCD Program.

Dr. Pappo’s dissertation entitled “Evaluating climate resilience of Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) agroecosystems” advances our conceptual approach to quantify agroecosystem resilience, improves our scientific understanding of sustaining high quality coffee production systems, and provides an innovative mechanism to implement rural education on climate change topics that can be applied in both temperate and tropical areas.  Emily’s dissertation exemplifies the TCD’s goals of bridging theory and practice, especially as it is targeted to enhance biodiversity conservation and improve livelihoods in the tropics and elsewhere.

The selection committee noted that Dr. Pappo has made important contributions to a wide range of scholarship on agroecosystem resilience and production of sustainable high quality coffee production under threat from changing climates.

Read the full Award announcement here!