We Lost A Good One!
Dr. Mary Kentula Helped Us See What Wetlands Really Are
Mary Kentula Helped Us See What Wetlands Really Are
In Memory of Dr. Mary E. Kentula (1949–2026)
by Steve Paulsen, PhD
Mary Kentula didn’t just study wetlands. She helped this country see them clearly, scientifically, and at scale. She passed away on February 5, 2026.
When I met Mary in 1990, she was already leading EPA’s Wetland Research Program out of Corvallis. Her work was focused on a fundamental question: could constructed wetlands function the same way as natural ones? It was the kind of research that mattered, not just to science, but to the country’s environmental policy. The phrase “no net loss of wetlands” sounds simple. Mary’s work helped us understand what it actually means, and whether we were anywhere close to achieving it.
She had a knack for making the complex both rigorous and usable. That’s rare in science.
Years later, EMAP was wrestling with how to include wetlands in our national monitoring strategy. I asked her, only half-seriously, if she and a few good wetland ecologists could walk into a marsh they’d never seen before and tell me its condition.
“Sure,” she said.
That one word set things in motion. She ran pilots in the Nanticoke and Juniata watersheds. The results gave us proof-of-concept. And thanks to her leadership, wetlands were brought into the national aquatic surveys. Mary ended up leading the wetland component for both EMAP and NARS. She helped design the survey. Built the indicators. Led the data interpretation. Recruited an outstanding team, including young scientists like Amanda Nahlik, who now leads EPA’s wetlands work.
An interview of Mary for EPA’s “Faces of EPA”
Mary didn’t just advance the science. She built the infrastructure of truth.
But she never set out to be a scientist. Not at first. She grew up in a small coal town in southwestern Pennsylvania, where the only scientists she knew were her high school teachers. That changed when a guidance counselor encouraged her to attend an NSF summer program in Massachusetts. There, she gave her first research talk. And she knew.
From that moment forward, she never looked back. She earned her BS at Saint Francis College, then her MS and PhD at Oregon State in Biological Sciences and Botany. After a postdoc with the legendary Joy Zedler, she helped develop EPA’s first Wetlands Research Plan. She eventually joined the agency as a full-time research scientist.
Mary could have gone the academic route. And in some ways, she did. She stayed active as an adjunct professor at OSU and loved mentoring students. But she also understood something essential about science in government: when done right, it can shape policy at scale. And hers did. Her research informed national policy changes at EPA, twice, and even helped guide decision-making at the Army Corps of Engineers.
She once told me she wanted people to understand the diversity of wetlands in this country. That was her north star. She knew she couldn’t visit them all herself, so she built the tools and teams that would. And the country is better for it.
Mary was a mentor to many, a scientist to the core, and a builder of systems that still hold strong. She never sought attention, but she commanded deep respect. If you’re doing wetland science today, chances are your work rests on something Mary helped shape.
One of the things Mary was proud of was the network of hundreds of wetland scientists and managers she helped bring together over the course of her career. She played a key role in organizing conferences, leading collaborations, and hosting symposia focused on wetland research and the development of indicators to monitor wetland condition.
Mary didn’t just convene experts. She connected disciplines. She drew together voices from across the scientific and management communities, uniting field ecologists, modelers, policymakers, and agency staff. These gatherings weren’t just events, they were catalysts. They helped communicate the value of wetlands, showcased the science, and advanced the use of monitoring tools developed through the Wetlands Research Program and the National Wetland Condition Assessment.
It was classic Mary: strategic, inclusive, and deeply committed to making science useful, and usable, on the ground.
In 2019, Mary received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Wetland Scientists. She had also served as the society’s President, a role she brought the same humility and clarity to as she did everything else. That same year, she lost her beloved husband Don, a professor of botany at Oregon State. It was a hard year, but she kept showing up for the work, for her colleagues, and for the mission.
We owe her more than a thank you. We owe her the continuation of what she started: science with integrity, policy rooted in evidence, and wetlands that aren’t forgotten just because they’re hard to measure.
Thanks, Mary. For saying yes when it mattered. For building what didn’t exist. And for reminding us all that real leadership often looks like quiet, brilliant persistence.