Dr. Chad Wilsey serves as ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s Chief Scientist. In this role Chad leads a team of scientists conducting analyses in support of ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s Flight Plan. Chad was a principal investigator on ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s Survival by Degrees report, and Water and Birds in the Arid West: Habitats in Decline reports. Chad’s research generally focuses on the impacts of climate and land-use change on birds and ecosystems. He commonly works with big data collected by volunteer scientists along with tools such as GIS, machine learning, and systematic spatial prioritization.
Prior to joining ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ in 2013, Chad conducted his graduate studies on the endangered Black-capped Vireo in Texas and birds in cacao and banana agroforests in Costa Rica. He was also a consultant for energy development projects in Wyoming, conducted bird banding in New Mexico, and monitored nesting macaws in Peru. Chad is fluent in Spanish and lived abroad for 3 years in Mexico and Costa Rica. He has a PhD from the University of Washington, an MS from the University of Wisconsin, and a BS from the University of Puget Sound. Chad grew up north of Milwaukee, one mile from the Schlitz ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Center. Chad lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and daughter.
