Education
BSc University of Toronto, Canada 1982
MSc Queen's University, Canada 1985
PhD University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University, Canada 1991
Positions Held
Professor and BC Leadership Chair, Simon Fraser University 2005 – present
Professor/Chair Conservation Ecology, University of East Anglia 2002 – 2005
Reader (=Assoc. Prof. in N. America), University of East Anglia 1999 – 2002
Senior Lecturer (=Assoc. Prof. in N. America), University of East Anglia 1998 – 1999
Lecturer (= Asst. Prof. in N. America), University of East Anglia 1993 – 1998
Bellairs Postdoctoral Fellowship, McGill University 1993
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship. University of Oxford 1990 – 1992
Awards
2003 J.C. Stevenson Award & Lecture – Canadian Conference for Fisheries Research
2000 FSBI Medal – Fisheries Society of the British Isles
1989 Ramsay Wright Award. Outstanding graduate student. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
1983 Beatty Award, Queen’s University, Canada
1982 W.H. Walker Award. Outstanding undergraduate student. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
Current Public Service
Vancouver Aquarium - Board Member and Research & Conservation Committee
Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society - Board Member
Pacific Wildlife Foundation - Fellow
Recent Service
Fraser Salmon Think Tank - Co-Chair - report released December 2009
BC Pacific Salmon Forum - Science Advisory Committee - Report released Feb 2009
Skeena River Fisheries Independent Science Review Panel - Report released June 2008
As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, I was inspired by Jim Rising and Richard Knapton to study evolutionary ecology. This led to an MSc with Fred Cooke at Queen's University, which involved three fantastic field seasons studying behavioural ecology of red-necked phalaropes at a remote location on the coast of Hudson Bay, 40 km east of Churchill, Manitoba. These birds have sex-role reversal, with larger and more brightly coloured females fighting for males, which then perform all brood-rearing on their own. I have been collaborating with Tamas Szekely on comparative analyses of shorebird breeding systems ever since (see Evolution of Life Histories). For my PhD I switched to fish, with research on sexual selection in Trinidadian guppies, studying with Mart Gross first at Simon Fraser University and later at the University of Toronto. Next came a postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford with Paul Harvey, and then my first faculty position at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.
I joined Simon Fraser University in September 2005, taking up a professorship and the Tom Buell BC Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation. My new research program is focussing on conservation and ecology of Pacific salmon with an emphasis on their ecosystems, including connections between marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats. We are setting up a variety of long-term field studies and experiments designed to understand how various human impacts on salmon and their habitats translate into population declines and recovery, including the many species of terrestrial plants and animals that are linked to nutrients and trophic interactions involving salmon. At the same time, I am continuing with my interests in the biology of extinction risk, using large-scale comparative analyses of marine and freshwater fish species to understand how life histories interact with particular kinds of threats to determine population responses, with an emphasis on fisheries.
In alternate years I teach either a fourth-year course in Fisheries Ecology, which uses a textbook that I co-authored with Simon Jennings and Mike Kaiser, or a 3-week field course on terrestrial and freshwater conservation at the Bamfield Marine Science Centre on Vancouver Island.
