Gareth J. Russell, PhD, is an associate professor in the department of biological sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology whose research is driven in large part by an intense interest in how complex ecological systems work. This interest manifests itself in a variety of specific research activities. One such activity involves the colonial wading birds of south Florida, and of Everglades National Park in particular. There are two main themes. One is analysis of the wading bird distribution data collected by the systematic reconnaissance flights. Another interest is information-based statistics in ecology, likelihood and Bayesian methods for estimating survivorship and related curves, small-world and other network models as they apply to ecological systems.

Recent publications include: Ferraz, G., Russell, G.J., Lovejoy, T.E., Stouffer, P.C., Bierregaard, R.O., & Pimm, S.L. (2004); "Rates of species loss from Amazonian forest fragments," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 24, 14069–14073; and Russell, G.J., Bass, O.L., Pimm, S.L. (2002), "The effects of hydrological patterns and untimely, breeding-season flooding on the numbers and distribution of wading birds in Everglades National Park," Animal Conservation, 5, 185-199.

Russell received his PhD from the University of Tennessee and his BA from the University of Oxford.

Last update: September 14, 2010