DR. JEREMY T. KERR

Selected Publications

  • Soroye, P., N. Ahmed, and J. T. Kerr. 2018. Opportunistic citizen science data provides substantial novel information when used in complement with professional survey data. Global Change Biology. 

  • Zuloaga, J., D. J. Currie, and J. T. Kerr. 2018. The origins and maintenance of global species endemism. Global Ecology and Biogeography.

  • Kerr, J. T. 2017. A cocktail of poisons. Science 356: 1332-1333. DOI: 10.1126/science.aan6713.

  • Robillard*, C. and J. T. Kerr. 2017. Assessing the shelf life of cost-efficient conservation plans for species at risk across gradients of agricultural land-use. Conservation Biology 31: 837-847. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12886

  • Kerr J. T., Pindar A, Galpern P, Packer L, Roberts SM, Rasmont P, Schweiger O, Colla SR, Richardson LL, Wagner DL, Gall LF, Sikes DS, Pantoja A. 2015. Climate change impacts on bumblebees converge across continents. Science 349: 177-180.

Teaching

 

Biography

I serve as an editor for Global Ecology and Biogeography, Ecography, Evolutionary Ecology Research, and as a senior editor at FACETS. I served on the Evaluation Group 1503 for Ecology and Evolution and as a member of the advisory group to improve NSERC’s Common CV.

I did my undergrad at U of O in Biology and my honours project with a pioneer of macroecology, David Currie. I did my PhD at York University with an incredible biologist, Laurence Packer, from whom I learned totally different things, including that Mahler isn’t my thing and that butterflies are beautiful and scientifically fascinating. I went on to do a postdoc in Oxford with Bob May and Dick Southwood. I can't do either of these legendary scientists justice here. I ended up back in Ottawa as a research scientist in remote sensing with another legend, Josef Cihlar, and then full circle to Biology at University of Ottawa.

In all things, I try to give back more than I use up. I am strongly engaged in public science and at the science-policy interface. Activities I’ve helped lead include improving endangered species legislation in Canada and Ontario, boreal conservation, malaria challenges in East Africa and, recently, as a voice opposing the increasingly Orwellian perversion of facts and evidence at the federal level in Canada. I have contributed to the development of Canada’s Chief Science Advisor position in a number of ways, serve as an executive of NSERC Council as Chair of Discovery Research, and have longstanding commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM.

I hold the University Research Chair in Macroecology and Conservation and just completed my term as President of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution. I am an alumnus of the Global Young Academy and have had research successes that are important to me, including Young Researcher of the Year, Early Researcher Award from Ontario, and most recently the Excellence in Media Relations prize for Research. I am very active in the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering, a project of the Royal Society of Canada.