Megan Wilcots

Megan Wilcots is the Applied Grassland Climate Scientist for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology at the University of Minnesota and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University before starting with TNC in 2024. Her research experience spans grasslands, tundra, peatlands, and temperate and tropical forests, and, with an emphasis on understanding how global change drivers impact plant communities and their ability to store carbon and cycle nutrients. At TNC, Megan leads our Grassland Monitoring Team (GMT) work, a multi-decadal collaboration with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Minnesota DNR. GMT work includes monitoring remnant prairies across the three-state region to understand how management influences species diversity and community composition. Additionally, Megan leads our work on climate metrics, calculating custom greenhouse gas mitigation metrics for many of our conservation bodies of work. She also completed a fellowship through the Science Coda Teams program, and worked with the Alaska chapter to make a menu of climate opportunities called the SCOPE (State Climate Opportunities and Pathways Explorer) Project. Megan is also currently working on projects related to grazing in grasslands, sustainable aviation fuel expansion in Minnesota, and identifying drivers of grassland retention in the Northern Great Plains.