Robert Anderson

Position: 
Former BGC Member
Area of Interest: 
Conservation / Species Interactions
Bio: 

I graduated from Northeastern University with a BS in Environmental Science in May 2019. After working in shorebird conservation for a summer, I joined the Jetz Lab in January 2020 as a part of the Map of Life in order to learn more about biodiversity data and improve my coding and mapping skills. During my time here I have focused primarily on preparing rangemap datasets for display on the website, but I have also gotten experience working with many other data types as well.

My career interests generally revolve around the connections that exist in ecosystems, with particular interest in species interactions. I am fascinated by how connected everything in the world is, and how it is impossible to make a change in one part of an ecosystem without considering what impact that will have on all other aspects of the system. I am also interested in the concept of how to properly value land and space, and am hoping to start a career in conservation prioritization where I can incorporate considerations of the effect species interactions have on ecosystem functioning into decision-making methods.

I will be leaving the Jetz Lab in the Summer of 2021 to pursue a Master’s degree with Dr. Bill Lauenroth in the Yale School of the Environment. In my graduate work I will be studying plant interactions in dryland ecosystems, and hope to also explore the impacts these plant dynamics will have on migratory pathways of ungulates.

Lab Specialty Group: 
Conservation Analytics
Where You're From: 
United States of America
Hobbies: 
Birding