Background
Parmesan was born on July 6, 1961 in Houston, Texas, United States; the daughter of Daniel Joseph and Dorothy Bernice (Johnson) Parmesan.
Parmesan was born on July 6, 1961 in Houston, Texas, United States; the daughter of Daniel Joseph and Dorothy Bernice (Johnson) Parmesan.
Parmesan received a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from the University of Texas in 1984. Eleven years later she was given a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Biological Sciences from the same university.
Parmesan began her career as a postdoctoral fellow at National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis of the University of California in 1996 and held it for three years. Nowadays she works as a professor in the Marine Institute at Plymouth University, where she holds the National Aquarium Chair in the Public Understanding of Oceans and Human Health.
Camille is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Geology and a senior research fellow in the Environmental Science Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.
She has participated in the United States and international assessments of climate change impacts and provided formal testimonies for the United States House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee. Camille has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Parmesan works actively with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as well as other governmental agencies to help develop conservation assessment and planning tools aimed at preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change.
Parmesan is known for her research in biological impacts of anthropogenic climate change in natural systems and global-scale syntheses and meta-analyses of biological responses to climate change across all taxonomic groups.
Her work has been highlighted in hundreds of scientific and popular press articles, such as in Science News, the New York Times, the London Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, Science ét Vie, Audubon magazine, National Public Radio and others.
Camille was awarded the "2013 Distinguished Scientist" by the Texas Academy of Science and named as "Outstanding Woman Working on Climate Change," by The International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2007 and named as "Who’s Who of Women and the Environment" by the United Nations Environment Program in honor of "International Women’s Day" in 2007.
Parmesan is a member of American Association for the Advancement of Science and Ecological Society of America.
In September 1979 Camille married Jonathan Wheeler, with whom she divorced in 1984. Then in 1990, she married Michael C. Singer.
