Andrew N. Stillman
Education: PhD ’21, University of Connecticut
Cornell Adviser: Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez (Lab of Ornithology)
External Partner: USDA Forest Service
Themes: Advancing One Health
Achieving Resiliency Through Effective Fire Management: Scaling up Assessments of Fire Impacts on Biodiversity
Andrew Stillman is a 2022 Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow. His interdepartmental project will assess the impacts of recent fire and forest management on biodiversity and predict responses to fire under various climates forest conditions and land management scenarios. Working with Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez (Lab of Ornithology) and partners at the USDA Forest Service, the project builds on his multi-year collaboration with agency biologists and conservation practitioners across the U.S. Research outcomes will include composite maps of fire occurrence, fire severity, and forest management interventions across two fire-impacted regions (the southeastern and western U.S.). Andrew will use the data from eBird, a global citizen science project based at Cornell, to estimate the impacts of fire regimes and fire management on bird abundance and population trends.
Andrew will develop a partnership between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and The Learning Web in Ithaca to use citizen science as a tool for diversity and inclusion. His outreach program will include job shadowing opportunities and local research experiences for high school students, as well as STEM career development for underserved students in Ithaca.
“Wildfires are increasing in severity and frequency, and profoundly impacting social and ecological systems,” said Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez, Assistant Director, Center for Avian Population Studies.
“We are very excited to work with Andrew on this opportunity to leverage continental-scale, high-resolution avian community science data to predict outcomes for biodiversity based on future fire management and climate scenarios.”