The Sarah and Daniel Hrdy Fellowsip in Conservation Biology serves to support the study of conservation biology within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. The fellowship is awarded to an individual who will engage in scientific study and work in the Department of Organismic and Evolutonary Biology. The fellowship commences with an annual lecture in conservation biology by the distinguished individual chosen for the fellowship from outside Harvard University. It is the hope of the benefactors that this fellowship will have a strong and transformative effect on the study of conservation biology at Harvard, from the undergraduate to the senior teaching level.
2014-2015 Hrdy Visiting Fellow
Joe Roman
Ph.D., Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
M.A., Wildlife Ecology/Conservation, University of Florida
Email: romanjoe@gmail.com
Website: joeroman.com
Joe Roman is a conservation biologist and author with research interests in endangered species conservation, ecosystem services, biological invasions, marine population genetics, and marine ecology. His broad research interests span endangered species policy, marine mammalogy, and the relationship between biodiversity and human well-being.
While a Hrdy Fellow, Dr. Roman will focus on the economics of endangered species conservation and the ecological role of great whales. Dr. Roman will also teach a junior tutorial on endangered species conservation, including a history of wildlife protection and the value of ecosystem services provided by critical habitat (ecosystems) under the Endangered Species Act.
He is a fellow at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and researcher at the Rubenstein School for the Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. He is also a Mary Derrickson McCurdy Visiting Scholar at the Duke University Marine Laboratory. His prior experience includes serving as an Environmental Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, testifying before Congress on the value of the Endangered Species Act, and working at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina as a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil.
Dr. Roman combines biological research with popular writing, policy, and ecological economics to address conservation issues and biodiversity policy. His research has appeared in journals such as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and Conservation Biology. It has been covered by The New Yorker, The New York Times, Outside Magazine, Science Friday, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets.
Dr. Roman is the author of Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act (Harvard University Press, 2011), winner of the 2012 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, and Whale (Reaktion 2006), a cultural and natural history of whales and whaling. His science and nature writing has appeared in Audubon, New Scientist, The New York Times, Slate, and other publications. With a research background on invasive species genetics, Joe heads a public online forum, Eat the Invaders.