Douglas Causey

Causey is Professor of Biological Sciences at UAA and Senior Fellow of the Arctic Initiative of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.  He arrived to UAA in June 2005 from Harvard University where he was Curator of Birds and Senior Biologist at the Museum of Comparative Zoology.  An ecologist and evolutionary biologist by training, he has authored over two hundred publications on topics as diverse as the ecology of Arctic marine birds, high Arctic coastal systems, and zoonotic diseases hosted by northern birds and bats.  He has published extensively on policy issues related to the Arctic environment, Arctic geopolitics, and bioterrorism and public health.  His current ecological research focuses on the environmental correlates of climate change in the Arctic upon birds and mammals, its consequental impact on local and Indigenous people, and the association with the increase of infectious disease in northern communities.  He and the students in his lab are actively conducting research in the Aleutian Islands, the northern Bering Sea, and Northwestern Greenland.  He is co-lead of the NSF Greenland Ice Sheet - Ocean Interaction Network’s Coastal Ecosystem Working Group, which is working to develop more focused and inclusive research on problems relevant to climate change occurring at Greenland’s marine margins.