>Thomas H. Kunz, Ph. D.
Professor of Biology
Director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology (CECB)
Boston University, Biology Department, 5 Cummington St., Boston, MA 02215, USA
Professor of Biology
Director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology (CECB)
Boston University, Biology Department, 5 Cummington St., Boston, MA 02215, USA
Thomas
H. Kunz is Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Ecology
and Conservation Biology at Boston University, where he has been
on the faculty for the past 35 years. He received a BA in Biology
and MA in Education from the University of Central Missouri, a MA
in Biology from Drake University, and a Ph.D. in Systematics and
Ecology from the University of Kansas. His research focuses
on the ecology, behavior, evolution, and conservation biology of
bats. He is the author or co-author of over 200 publications and
is the editor of Ecology of Bats (Plenum Press, 1982) and Ecological
and Behavioral Methods for the Study of Bats (Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1988); and co-editor of Bat Biology and Conservation (Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1998), Bat Ecology (University of Chicago Press,
2003), Functional and Evolutionary Ecology of Bats (Oxford University
Press, 2006), and the 2nd edition of Ecological and Behavioral Methods
for the Study of Bats (Johns Hopkins University Press, in press).
He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, Past-President of the American Society of Mammalogists,
and a recipient of the Gerrit S. Miller Jr. Award for outstanding
research on bats and the C. Hart Merriam Award for outstanding contributions
to the discipline of mammalogy. He has conducted field research
in mid-western, northeastern and southwestern regions of the United
States, and in India, Malaysia, Ecuador, Trinidad, Puerto Rico,
and Costa Rica. His current research is funded by grants from the
National Science Foundation, where his work focuses on assessing
the ecological and economic impact of Brazilian free-tailed bats
on agroecosystems. He developed numerous methods for the ecological
and behavioral studies of bats and has recently pioneered applications
of thermal infrared imaging in ecology and behavior. He was recently
a member of a National Research Council committee investigating
Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy, and led a National Wind Coordinating
Committee charged with preparing a document entitled Methods and
Metrics for Studying the Impacts of Wind Power on Bats and Nocturnally-Active
Birds. He introduced the concept of Aeroecology, an emerging discipline
that embraces and integrates the domains of atmospheric science,
animal behavior, ecology, evolution, earth science, geography, computer
science, computational biology, and engineering. He is currently
also involved in research on White Nose Syndrome (WNS) in bats --
a disease that has been devastating bat populations throughout the
northeastern U.S.