Carys Mitchelmore

Dr. Carys L. Mitchelmore is a professor and interim director of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland. Her expertise is in environmental health and toxicology spans fundamental and applied questions concerning the exposure, fate and effects of pollutants. Her research is directed towards the detection of chemical contaminants and understanding their toxicity and implications to ecosystem health for risk assessment, regulation, and management activities.

Dr. Mitchelmore has been building a framework of collaborative interdisciplinary research with NGOs, trade associations, and industrial partners to address societal concerns regarding the environmental risk of emerging personal care product chemicals, including sunscreen ingredient UV filters, especially to endangered and/or understudied species like corals. Her expertise in the impacts of oil and oil spill dispersants was called upon to provide research and expert advice regarding the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil incident.

Dr. Mitchelmore is invested in integrating scientific research for management and regulatory communities and serves on numerous international and national science advisory groups as an environmental toxicologist, including five National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine committees. She was involved in many advisory groups for the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment, provided a report estimating sea turtle losses, and continues to be involved in working groups concerning oil impacts in the environment. She has also provided testimony at Federal, State, and local hearings and served as an expert witness in courts on aquatic toxicity, hazard assessment, and environmental regulations and management.

Additionally, she is committed to educating the next generation of scientific leaders. She teaches numerous MEES graduate courses and previously was chair of the UMCES Policy, Course, Curriculum, and the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory’s graduate education committees, and serves on the MEES program committee.

Dr. Mitchelmore received a BSc (Hons) Biology and MSc Applied toxicology from the University of Portsmouth (U.K.), and her Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham (U.K.) in 1997 investigating the metabolism and toxicity of organic contaminants. Prior to joining CBL as an Assistant Professor in 2022 she held three postdoctoral positions at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (U.K.), University of Kent at Canterbury (U.K.) and Oregon State University.