Dr. Jeff Smith
HawkWatch International
Dr. Smith has served since 1999 as the Conservation Science Director at HawkWatch International (HWI), a non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah that is dedicated to monitoring and protecting birds of prey through programs in research, conservation, and education. He manages all of HWI's research and monitoring projects, which currently include 14 long-term raptor migration studies, an extensive raptor nest survey in the northern Great Basin, and various other shorter-term projects designed to address threats to raptors and facilitate raptor-friendly ecosystem management.
Dr. Smith received his B.A. in Zoology from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1981, his M.Sc. in Biology-Ecology from Utah State University in 1988, and his Ph.D. in Forest Resources and Conservation (Wildlife Ecology) from the University of Florida in 1994. Before joining the HWI staff in 1997, he also completed a 2-year post-doctoral appointment at Oregon State University, working in conjunction with the USGS Biological Resources Division.
His graduate and post-doctoral research included studies of accipiter morphometrics in western North America, an ecosystem-scale study of wading birds in Florida, development of a comprehensive report on the status of biological resources in the Pacific Northwest, and facilitating initiation of a large-scale forest ecosystem research program in Oregon. He recently served a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the Raptor Research Foundation, having previously served for three years as Scientific Program Chair. He holds an Adjunct Professor position in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Wyoming, and is a Research Associate of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association in Pennsylvania. He has published more than two-dozen, peer-reviewed manuscripts in a variety of scientific disciplines.