W. Douglas Robinson is Professor of Wildlife Science and Curator of Birds at Oregon State University. He is Chief Editor of the academic journal Frontiers in Bird Science.
My research group studies birds to understand how and why populations respond to environmental change, drawing on long-term field studies, museum collections, and large-scale citizen-science data, especially data derived from birding.
A central goal of the lab is training students to ask strong ecological questions, work with complex data, and communicate their science effectively.
I teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Land-grant mission
As a land-grant university professor, I try to use my skills in ways that are genuinely useful to the people and landscapes of Oregon. Much of my work focuses on identifying and counting birds by sound, which allows me to document bird populations efficiently and consistently across large areas. These efforts contribute to building long-term baseline records of Oregon’s birds, surveyed with methods that are precisely repeatable in the future. Such data help us understand how populations change and why those changes matter.
I am particularly committed to establishing benchmarks of biodiversity to help future generations truly understand how bird populations change through time. To that end, I archive much of my data in the citizen-science database, eBird, and I am one the world’s top contributors to it.
I have also dedicated much of my career to studying the long-term community dynamics of Barro Colorado Island, Panama, and its birds. Walking in the footsteps of Frank Chapman, who created the first inventories of birds there in the 1920s and 1930s, I resurvey the community each year in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
The thrill of discovering previously unrecognized diversity also drives my work, especially now through the technological advantages of bioacoustics study. My collaborators, many of whom are students, and I have been working on the cryptic diversity of populations with different flight calls hidden within widespread finch species such as Evening Grosbeaks, Hooded Grosbeaks, Red Crossbills and Purple Finches.
Some honors and awards:
Bob and Phyllis Mace Endowed Professorship (2011-2021)
Fellow, American Ornithological Society (2012)
Savory Outstanding Young Faculty Award, OSU (2005)