Felicia Keesing

Felicia Keesing
Keesing in Kenya in 2012
Born (1966-01-24) January 24, 1966 (age 58)
Santa Cruz, California, U.S.
Alma mater
OccupationBiologist
Awards
Scientific career
InstitutionsBard College

Felicia Keesing (born January 24, 1966) is an American ecologist and the David & Rosalie Rose Distinguished Chair of the Sciences, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.[1]

Education

Keesing received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 1987 and her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1997.[citation needed]

Research

Keesing's research focuses on the consequences of human impacts, particularly biodiversity loss, for ecological communities. In Kenya, she has studied how the absence of large mammals like giraffes and elephants affects savanna ecology.[2][3] She and Richard Ostfeld pioneered research on the ecology of Lyme disease, in particular how human risk for Lyme disease is affected by forest fragmentation and the loss of biodiversity.[4] She and Ostfeld also developed core ideas about the general relationship between biodiversity loss and the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases,[5] and a conceptual model of the effects of pulsed resources on ecological communities.[6]

From 2016 to 2021, she and Ostfeld co-directed the Tick Project, a study to test whether environmental interventions could prevent Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in residential neighborhoods of Dutchess County, New York.[7]

Keesing's recent research in Kenya focuses on the ecological, economic, and social consequences of managing land in Laikipia County, Kenya for livestock, wildlife, or both.[8]

In 2009, she served on the steering committee for the Vision and Change[9] initiative to reform the teaching of undergraduate biology, and from 2012 to 2017, with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, she directed a project on science literacy for college students. In 2017, she led the development of the curriculum for the Citizen Science program[10] at Bard College.

Awards and recognition

Keesing received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 1999. She is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (2019)[11] and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021).[12] In 2022, she was awarded the International Cosmos Prize.[13] Keesing was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023,[14] and received the C. Hart Merriam award from the American Society of Mammalogists in 2024 in recognition of "outstanding research in mammalogy over a period of at least 10 years".

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ "Felicia Keesing".
  2. ^ Keesing, Felicia (2000). "Cryptic consumers and the ecology of an African savanna". BioScience. 50 (3): 205–215. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2000)050[0205:CCATEO]2.3.CO;2. S2CID 53000884.
  3. ^ Keesing, Felicia; Young, Truman P. (2014). "Cascading consequences of the loss of large mammals in an African savanna". BioScience. 64 (6): 487–495. doi:10.1093/biosci/biu059.
  4. ^ Keesing, Felicia; Ostfeld, Richard S. (2000). "Biodiversity series: the function of biodiversity in the ecology of vector-borne zoonotic diseases". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 78 (12): 2061–2078. doi:10.1139/z00-172.
  5. ^ Keesing, Felicia; Ostfeld, Richard S. (2021). "Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (17): e2023540118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11823540K. doi:10.1073/pnas.2023540118. PMC 8092607. PMID 33820825.
  6. ^ Keesing, Felicia; Ostfeld, Richard S. (2000). "Pulsed resources and community dynamics of consumers in terrestrial ecosystems". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 15 (6): 232–237. doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(00)01862-0. PMID 10802548.
  7. ^ Keesing, F.; Mowry, S.; Bremer, W.; Duerr, S.; Evans Jr., A.S.; Fischhoff, I.; Hinckley, A.F.; Hook, S.A.; Keating, F.; Pendleton, J.; Pfister, A.; Teator, M.; Ostfeld, R.S. (2022). "Effects of Tick-Control Interventions on Tick Abundance, Human Encounters with Ticks, and Incidence of Tickborne Diseases in Residential Neighborhoods". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 28 (5): 957–966. doi:10.3201/eid2805.211146. PMC 9045441. PMID 35447066.
  8. ^ Keesing, F.; Ostfeld, R.S.; Okanga, S.; Huckett, S.; Bayles, B.R.; Chaplin-Kramer, R.; Fredericks, L.P.; Hedlund, T.; Kowal, V.; Tallis, H.; Warui, C.M.; Wood, S.A.; Allan, B.F. (2018). "Consequences of integrating livestock and wildlife in an African savanna". Nature Sustainability. 1 (10): 566–573. Bibcode:2018NatSu...1..566K. doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0149-2. S2CID 134201534.
  9. ^ "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education » Advisory Board".
  10. ^ Relations, Bard Public. "Bard Biology Professor Felicia Keesing Among Leading Scientists Featured in Sir David Attenborough's Documentary EXTINCTION – THE FACTS, Which Debuts on PBS March 31". www.bard.edu.
  11. ^ "ESA Fellows – the Ecological Society of America".
  12. ^ "AAAS Honorary Fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science".
  13. ^ "International Cosmos Prizewinners".
  14. ^ "All Fellows – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation…". Retrieved 2024-06-17.