As Executive Director of the Lab from 1995\u20132021, I oversaw all aspects of the Lab’s affairs and conducted research as a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Since stepping down from the directorship in July 2021, I am still closely involved in Lab affairs, and I am active in a variety of research projects, including my long-term project on the ecology, landscape genetics, and conservation of the Florida Scrub-Jay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was privileged to grow up in rural Minnesota during the 1950s and 60s, where I fell in love with birds at a very early age. Several of my parents’ friends were birdwatchers, and one was even an avid bird-bander (Jane Olyphant). Our neighbor across the pond was a famous wildlife artist (Francis Lee Jaques) who became my childhood hero. I remain a passionate birder, and occasional bird-painter, to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In college I studied the biogeography of South American tyrant flycatchers, and for my Ph.D. I spent several years roaming Central and South America quantifying the foraging behaviors of this huge and diverse bird family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During college, I worked as a summer intern studying Florida Scrub-Jays at Archbold Biological Station. My first job after grad school was at the Field Museum of Natural History, where I continued pursuing both research interests. I became Executive Director of Archbold in 1988, and moved to take my current position at the Lab in 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In kindergarten, while sick at home during a spring day, I saw a male American Redstart out the living room window, and identified it using my parents’ Peterson field guide. I was instantly mesmerized by all the other beautiful species illustrated on those pages, and this began my lifelong ‘quest’ to see them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ph.D., Princeton University
B.A., Harvard University<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am married to Molly, our two children are Sarah (Cornell ’08) and Dylan (Middlebury ’11), and our granddaughter is Persis (born 2018).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2122,"parent":0,"template":"","program":[34,154,160,80],"project":[],"class_list":["post-2540","staff","type-staff","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","program-administration-and-building-operations","program-directors","program-operations-staff-development","program-researchers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff\/2540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/staff"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=2540"},{"taxonomy":"project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project?post=2540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}