Brown-Nichols Science Award
The Brown-Nichols Science Award was established in 2008 in honor of the significant contributions of Dr. Randall Brown and Dr. Frederic Nichols. Each made substantive contributions to science through research, by facilitating good science by others, and by communicating science to managers and policy makers in the San Francisco Estuary and watershed. Together they laid the foundations for the first Bay-Delta Science Conference.
The award is given biennially to recognize the contributions of a scientist for significant research and active involvement in facilitating the use of science to manage the San Francisco Estuary and watershed.
Jan Thompson, Recipient of the 2026 Brown-Nichols Science Award
Dr. Janet K. (Jan) Thompson is being honored by her peers as the tenth recipient of the Brown-Nichols Science Award. Jan is an extremely accomplished and highly respected scientist, with more than fifty years of experience researching the Bay-Delta. She has been an outstanding collaborator, mentor, and scientific leader. Working across disciplines with ecologists, geologists, chemists, hydrologists, and resource managers, she helped build one of the most successful integrated estuarine science programs in the United States.
Jan’s contributions to benthic ecology are both foundational and forward-looking. Her studies of benthic macrofauna, including early long-term descriptions of mudflat communities and her many insights into the ecology and impacts of invasive clams, have shaped our understanding of estuarine ecology. For example, Jan led and coauthored studies quantifying how clam and zooplankton grazing suppress phytoplankton in the Bay-Delta, showing that phytoplankton biomass is often maintained only through subsidies from other regions; this is a foundational result for Bay-Delta food-web science. As lead author and principal investigator, she developed novel methods to study the impact of invasive bivalves on phytoplankton dynamics, pelagic and benthic productivity, and sediment processes. She bridged scientific disciplines, helping align decades of field ecology with emerging computer models and elevating the rigor and relevance of Bay-Delta science. With the recent arrival of the golden mussel in the Bay-Delta, Jan’s work remains highly relevant today.
Jan is especially well known for clearly explaining complex benthic-pelagic dynamics and physics-ecology connections. She consistently succeeded not only in clearly communicating research findings to scientific audiences but also in translating benthic science into actionable guidance for managers and policy communities. Because of this hard work, so many people describe Jan as indispensable. Managers say her work changed restoration and policy assumptions. Agency scientists say her mentorship changed their careers. University collaborators say she made the connection between hydrodynamics and biota intelligible. Extending beyond her discipline and the Bay-Delta, the former Chief Data Officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services credits Jan’s mentorship for her success in Washington, D.C., and for inspiring the “people first, data always” leadership ethos.
Jan has built a reputation not only as a top-tier scientist but also as a warm and encouraging mentor, role model, collaborator, and bridge-builder, including for many younger women. Colleagues describe her as one of the few female role models and dedicated mentors in the Bay-Delta science community during a period when there were fewer women in science leadership. She modeled scientific integrity, intellectual courage, professional generosity, rigor, tenacity, and care. At the USGS, Jan mentored dozens of female and minority scientists and received the Survey’s first-ever diversity award, exemplifying leadership in building inclusive, high-performing research teams. More recently, the California Department of Water Resources awarded her the Sierra Nevada Phillips Award for Women in Water Resource Sciences, recognizing both her scientific leadership and extraordinary mentorship of early-career women scientists.
Past recipients of the Brown-Nichols Science Award