An Introduction to Conservation Biology

Richard B. Primack is a Professor in the Biology Department at Boston University. He received his B.A. at Harvard University in 1972 and his Ph.D. at Duke University in 1976, and then was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Canterbury and Harvard University. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong, Tokyo University, and the Northeast Forestry University in China, and has been awarded Bullard and Putnam Fellowships from Harvard University, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and Humboldt Fellowship from the German government. Dr. Primack was President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Conservation. Thirty-four foreign-language editions of his conservation biology textbooks (the Essentials and the shorter Primer of Conservation Biology) have been produced, with local coauthors. He is an author of rain forest books, most recently Tropical Rain Forests: An Ecological and Biogeographical Comparison (with Richard Corlett). Dr. Primack's research interests include: climate change biology; the loss of species in protected areas; tropical ecology; and conservation education. He has recently completed a popular book about the impacts of climate change, titled Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau's Woods.

Anna Sher is a Professor of Biology at the University of Denver, where she has taught Conservation Biology since 2003. She held a joint position as the Director of Research at Denver Botanic Gardens from 2003-2010. Dr. Sher has published books and articles for academic, trade, and popular audiences on various topics within conservation biology, including restoration ecology, rare plant conservation, and climate change. She is one of the foremost experts on the ecology of invasive Tamarix trees and was the lead editor of the book Tamarix: A Case Study of Ecological Change in the American West (Oxford University Press, 2013). Dr. Sher received her Ph.D. in Biology at the University of New Mexico in 1998, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis and as a Fulbright Scholar in Israel. She has also led scientific study-abroad programs in East Africa, and is a contributing science writer for the Huffington Post blog.