1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?
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I study the ways in which individuals and groups, from all walks of life, translate biodiversity information into conservation action. I’m writing a book on the following research questions:
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What are the external stresses, conceptual confusions, and unfounded beliefs that interfere with the design of ecological monitoring programs for large landscapes in the Tropics? |
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How can we change our behavior, as scientists and practitioners, to overcome these obstacles so that monitoring works successfully for biodiversity conservation?
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2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?
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I use a combination of participatory observation and literature review for my current research—very low tech!
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3. Where do you study biodiversity?
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I work with conservation partners primarily in the American Tropics and in Chicago Wilderness. I focus on protected areas (and biodiversity-rich landscapes that are on the road to protection) and their matrices of human-dominated land.
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4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?
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Our partnerships have developed a framework (we call it conservation design and information design) that is the basis for linking biodiversity values and threats to conservation goals and strategies, and for connecting research, inventory, and monitoring directly to these goals and strategies.
Conservation/information design emerged through partnerships in Mexico and Chicago Wilderness. We’re beginning to test it in South American landscapes, especially in the context of making the transition from rapid biological and social inventories to protection on paper to management on the ground. Conservation/information design is also the analytical framework for the monitoring book mentioned above.
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5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?
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When I was five years old, I started watching birds. A few years later I joined the Richmond Natural History Society and the Virginia Society for Ornithology, where I learned a lot about science and conservation. When I was nine I met Emmet (Bob) Blake, the curator of the Museum’s Bird Division at that time, and started corresponding with him. He encouraged me to study birds as a profession and opened up a whole new world to me by hiring me as his research assistant for two college summers.
The biology faculty and graduate students at the College of William and Mary also mentored me, especially in bird conservation in the field. During graduate school at the University of Chicago, I worked for Bob Blake both as Museum staff and as a volunteer. I came back to the Museum as a research associate when I worked for Brookfield Zoo (1987-89), as a freelance writer for Animal Kingdom (1989-90) and for ECP (1997-98), and now as a staff conservation ecologist and writer for ECP. The Field Museum has been a major force in my life for the past 40 years.
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6. Describe important collaborations for your scientific endeavors (describe your work with other researchers, organizations, or scientific groups, local or indigenous peoples, etc.)
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All of our work in ECP involves partnerships. Our partners range from indigenous groups (for example, the Cofan of Amazonian Ecuador) to nongovernmental organizations (for example, the Centro de Conservación, Investigación, y Manejo de Áreas Naturales-Cordillera Azul in Peru) to a huge consortium of scientific and management organizations and agencies (Chicago Wilderness). These partnerships both generate the content and context of conservation/information design and are its proving grounds.
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