Title: Executive Director
Institution: Institute for Bird Populations
Address: PO Box 518, Petaluma, California 94953-0518
Email: rsiegel@birdpop.org
Phone: (707) 789-3224
Visit Rodney’s Research Website
Research Interests: Wildlife populations, demographics, fire ecology, ecological restoration, quantitative ecology, birds, raptors, protected areas
Biographical Sketch:
I joined The Institute for Bird Populations in 1998 as a research scientist, after completing his B.A. at Yale and his Ph.D. at U.C. Davis. I was appointed Executive Director in 2008. My research interests include effects of fire and forest management on birds, conservation of meadow birds in the Sierra Nevada, ecology and conservation of owls, and effects of environmental change on forest birds. I am particularly interested in research that has practical applications for management and conservation. I have published nearly 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and co-authored multiple conservation strategies for California birds. My team and I work all over the U.S., other parts of the Americas, and other parts of the world. We have a highly skilled team of researchers and practical wildlife scientists. Though our primary focus is birds, we work with many other taxa, including bats, pollinators, and other species.
Education:
Ph.D. 1998, Ecology, University of California at Davis
B.A. 1991, Environmental Studies and Political Science (double major), Cum laude, Yale College, New Haven, CT
Ongoing and Recent CESU Projects:
- Mapping avian diversity, and rare and management sensitive birds, to aid BLM planning along the two riparian canyons in the Mojave Desert, California
- Using autonomous recording units to detect Gunnison Sage-Grouse lekking on BLM Lands in Southwest Colorado.
- Black-backed Woodpecker surveys
- Bird monitoring in the Sierra Nevada National Parks Network
- Estimating density and demographics of Bank Swallows on BLM land on the North Slope, Alaska
- Bird monitoring in the North Coast and Cascades National Parks Network
- Using autonomous recording units to monitor birds of pinyon-juniper-sagebrush communities in Utah