Peer Reviewed Publications
^ Student or postdoc
* All authors contributed equally to the publication
Mills-Novoa, M.* Thomas, K*, Mikulewicz, M.* (2025) Moving beyond projects to achieve transformative adaptation. Nature Climate Change
DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02414-x.
Mills-Novoa, M. and M. Mikulewicz. (2025) The Promise of Resistance: A New Lens for Climate Change Adaptation Research and Practice. ClimateWIRES 16(1)
DOI: 10.1002/wcc.922
Kuhl, L. Robinson, S., Jones, N.A., Falzon, D., Malmuth, A., Mikulewicz, M., Mills-Novoa, M., Mycoo, M. Parson, M., Rahman, M.,
Thomas, K.A., Schipper, E.L., and E. Walker. Chapter 11: Obstructing Global and Local Climate Adaptation. In: 1st Assessment of Climate Obstruction. Climate Change Social Science Network. Revised and resubmitted: January 2024
Mikulewicz, M.*, Thomas, K*, and Mills-Novoa, M.* 2025. Why projects cannot deliver transformative climate change adaptation. Climate Policy 1-5.
DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2025.2591881
Shah, S., Haverkamp, J.A., Guzmán, C.B., Mills-Novoa, M., and M.
Carmack. (2025) Beyond Unintentionality: Considering Climate Maladaptation as Cyclical. Climatic Change 178(77)
DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03922-7
Mills-Novoa, M. (2023) What happens after climate change adaptation projects end: A community-based approach to ex-post assessment of adaptation projects. Global Environmental Change 80
DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102655.
Johnson, L., Mikulewicz, M., Bigger, P., Chakraborty, R., Cunniff, A., Griffin, P.J., Guermond, V., Lambrou, N., Mills-Novoa, M., Neimark, B.,
Nelson, S., Rampini, C., Pasang Sherpa, P., and Simon, G. (2023) Intervention: The Invisible Labor of Climate Change Adaptation. Global Environmental Change 83
DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102769
Mills-Novoa, M., Boelens, R., Hoogesteger, J., and Vos, J. (2022) Resisting, Leveraging, and Reworking Climate Change Adaptation Projects from Below: Placing Adaptation in Ecuador’s Agrarian Struggles. Journal of Peasant Studies 6, 2283-2311
DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2144252
Eriksen, S., Schipper, L.F., Scoville-Simonds, M., Vincent, K., Lenaerts, L., Nicolai Adam, H., Brooks, N., Harding, B., Khatri, D., Liverman, D., Mills-Novoa, M., Mosberg, M., Muok, B., Nightingale, A., Ojha, H., Sygna, L., Taylor, M., Vogel, C., West, J.J. (2021) Climate change adaptation interventions in developing countries: Help, Hindrance, or Irrelevant? World Development 141: 105383. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13924
Mills-Novoa, M., Boelens, R., Hoogesteger, J., and Vos, J. (2020) Governmentality, Hydrosocial Territories & Recognition Politics: The making of subjects and objects for climate change adaptation in Ecuador. Geoforum 115: 90-101 DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.024
Mills-Novoa, M. (July 2020) On the Space between Success and Failure. Terrain.org.
Mills-Novoa, M. (2019) Making agro-export entrepreneurs out of campesinos: The role of water policy reform, agricultural development initiatives, and the specter of climate change in reshaping agricultural systems in Piura, Peru. Agriculture and Human Values 37: 667-682 DOI: 10.1007/s10460-019-10008-5
Mills-Novoa, M., Borgias, S., Crootof, A., Thapa, B., and Scott, C. (2016) Bringing the Hydro-social Cycle into Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Lessons from the Andean mountain water towers. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 107(2): 393-402 DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2016.1232618
Benzeev, R.^, Mills-Novoa, M., Silva dos Reis, F., Machad, M., Bernardo dos Santos, O., Dimas Menezes, P. (2025) Broadening Forest restoration’s benefits by including community-identified priorities in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Environmental Research Letters
Benzeev, R.^, Zhang, S., Ribeiro, P. and M. Mills-Novoa. (2025) Land tenure regimes influenced long-term restoration successes and reversals across Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Nature Communications 9656(16).
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-64732-0
Siegel, K., Mills-Novoa. M., Kinnebrew, E., Ochoa, J., and Shoffner, E. 2025. Understanding deforestation dynamics in Amazonian protected areas through land-use change models informed by conservation discourses. Biological Conservation 313
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111585
Siegel, K., Farah-Pérez, A., Kinnebrew, E., Mills-Novoa, M., Ochoa, J., and Shoffner, E. 2025 Integration of qualitative and quantitative methods for land use change modeling in a protected area in an Amazonian deforestation frontier. Conservation Biology
DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13924
Kinnebrew, E., Ochoa, J., Shoffner, E., Mills-Novoa, M., and Siegel, K. (2022) Trends and dissimilarity in land use change patterns detected with generated remote sensing products and Global Forest Change data: a case study of three Amazon protected areas. PLoS ONE 17(7): e0268970.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268970
Kinnebrew, E., Shoffner, E., Farah, A., Mills-Novoa, M., Ochoa, J., and Siegel, K. (2020) Approaches to interdisciplinary mixed methods research in land change science and environmental management. Conservation Biology
DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13642
Mills-Novoa, M. and S. Borgias. (2025) The New Era of Contested Hydropower Development: A Systematic Review from 2000-2022. World Development.
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107162
Anderson, E., Osborne, T., Maldonado-Ocampo, J., Mills-Novoa, M., Castello, L., Montoya, M., and Jenkins, C. (2019) Energy development reveals blind spots for Amazon Conservation. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 17(9): 521-529
DOI: 10.1002/fee.2114
Gerlak, A., Saguier, M., Mills-Novoa, M., Fernside, P. and Albrecht, T.R. (2019) Dams, Conflicts, Chinese Investments, and EIAs: A Race to the Bottom for South America? Ambio 49(1): 156-164
DOI: 10.1007/s13280-018-01145-y
Mills-Novoa, M and Taboada, R. (2017) Coexistence and Conflict: IWRM and Large-Scale Water Infrastructure Development in Piura, Peru. Water Alternatives 10(2): 370-394
Paprocki, K., Camargo A., Taylor, M., Bhasme S., and Mills-Novoa, M. (2025) How is Climate Change Changing Agrarian Studies? Journal of Agrarian Change 25(3)
DOI: 10.1111/joac.70018
Méndez, M., Shah, S., Golembeski, C., Bedsworth, L., Cha, M.J., Goldsmith, L., Homes, T.J., Maldonado, J., Middleton Manning, B.R., Méndez-Barrientos, E., and Mills-Novoa, M. (2025) Centering Environmental Justice in United States (U.S.) Climate Assessments. Climatic Change 178(90)
DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03924-5
Mills-Novoa, M., Boelens, R., Hoogesteger, J., and Vos, J. (2022) Water Justice and Climate Change. In: Water and Climate Change: Sustainable Development, Environmental, and Policy Issues. Routledge.
Mills-Novoa, M. and Liverman, D. (2019) Nationally Determined Contributions: Material and discursive climate commitments in the NDCs. WIRES Climate Change 10(5)
DOI: 10.1002/wcc.589
Gerlak, A., Weston, J., McMahon, B., Murray, R., and Mills-Novoa, M. (2018) Climate Risk Management and the Electricity Sector. Climate Risk Management 19: 12-22
DOI: 10.1016/j.crm.2017.12.003
Brice, B., Fullerton, C., Hawkes, K., Mills-Novoa, M., O’Neill, B., and Pawlowski, V.M. (2017) A Multi-Region Snapshot and Agency Contrast of US Natural Areas Recreation Regarding the Impacts of Climate Change. Natural Areas Journal 37(1): 86-97
DOI: 10.3375/043.037.0111
Outreach
Publications
Scientific Assessments
Kuhl, L. Robinson, S., Jones, N.A., Falzon, D., Malmuth, A., Mikulewicz, M., Mills-Novoa, M., Mycoo, M. Parson, M., Rahman, M., Thomas, K.A., Schipper, E.L., and E. Walker. Chapter 11: Obstructing Global and Local Climate Adaptation. In: 1st Assessment of Climate Obstruction. Climate Change Social Science Network. (2025)
Contributing author, Water chapter, IPCC: AR6, WGII (2022)
Co-lead author, Agriculture chapter, Montana Climate Assessment (2017)
Contributing author, Rural Areas chapter, IPCC: AR5, WGII (2014)
Other Social Justice Issues
Mills-Novoa, M. (2010) Harnessing Youth Voice in the Fight Against Hunger: The Role of Youth in Evaluating Federal Nutrition Assistance Programs within Albuquerque Public Schools. Washington, D.C.: Hunger Free Community Report, Congressional Hunger Center
Mills-Novoa, M. (2011) Sustaining Family Farming through Mentoring: A Toolkit for National Family Farm Coalition Members. National Family Farm Coalition Working Paper
Just Adaptation
Mills-Novoa, M. and C. Tapia. Después de la Adaptación: Un studio indisciplinario de los impactos a largo plazo del Proyecto de Adaptación al Cambio Climático a través de una efectiva gobernalidad del agua en el Ecuador PACC. (2022) Policy brief submitted to the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment and the Ecuadorian National Adaptation Plan
Mills-Novoa, M. (July 2020) On the Space between Success and Failure. Terrain.org. https://www.terrain.org/2020/science-stories/space-between/
Eriksen, S., Schipper, L.E., Lenaerts, L., Scoville-Simonds, M., Adam, H., Brooks, N., Harding, B., Khatri, D., Liverman, L, Mills-Novoa, M., Mosberg, M., Muok, B., Nightingale, A., Ojha, H., Sygna, L., Taylor, M., Vincent, K., Vogel, C., and J.J. West. (2018) Climate change interventions and vulnerability reduction in developing countries: Challenges and leverage points for transformation. Background paper submitted to Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Mills-Novoa, M., Vereczi, G., Ferroukhi, L., and Fairholm, J. (2017) Climate Change Adaptation Across Latin America and the Caribbean. United Nations Development Program (UNDP) White Paper
Mills-Novoa, M. (2021) The Climate Resilience Workbook Series Facilitation Guide. Climate Impacts Research Consortium, Oregon State University.
Mills-Novoa, M., Boone, M., Brown, Z., Bauer, B., and Sarchet, B. (2017) How Montana agriculture can respond to changing weather and climate patterns. MontGuides for Montana State University Extension: 1-4
Mills-Novoa, M., M. Boone, Z. Brown, and B. Bryan. (2016) How Farmers Can Be at the Forefront of Addressing Climate Change. One Montana Working Paper. Bozeman, MT