Steven Beissinger, professor of environmental science, policy, and management

Steven R. Beissinger is a professor of conservation biology and holds the A. Starker Leopold Chair in Wildlife Biology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management at UC Berkeley. He served as chair of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management from 2001-04. Beissinger teaches courses in conservation biology, and behavioral and population ecology. His current research focuses on the ecology of endangered or exploited species; the long-term response of California birds and mammals to climate change, and avian parental care strategies.

Beissinger has worked throughout the U.S. and internationally (Venezuela, Guyana, Puerto Rico, and Cuba), and has published over 150 scientific articles. He is senior editor of the books Population Viability Analysis (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and New World Parrots in Crisis: Solutions from Conservation Biology (Smithsonian Press, 1992). Beissinger is a Fellow of the London Zoological Society and the American Ornithologists' Union. He has served on the Marbled Murrelet Recovery Team, U.S. National Committees of the International Union of Biological Sciences, and Diversitas. He served on the editorial boards of Conservation Biology, Ecology Letters, and Ecology, and the Board of Directors of the National Audubon Society. He is a research associate of the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Beissinger joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1996 after spending eight years as a professor at Yale University and two years as an NSF Postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo.