Pamela Rasmussen – History and Mystery: Reevaluating Avian Diversity in South Asia

Field problem presented: Robert Kennedy – Nantucket Offshore Wintering Wildfowl: Possible Impacts from Offshore Sand Mining

Dr. Pamela Rasmussen’s research focuses on the diversity, vocalizations, taxonomy, and conservation of the avifauna of southern Asia. She recently (2005) co-authored a two-volume book, Birds of South Asia: the Ripley Guide, published in April 2005. She has also worked on systematics, ecology, behavior, and zooarcheology of Patagonian seabirds, and co-authored (with Dr. Storrs Olson) a review of the miopliocene avifauna of North Carolina.

Dr Rasmussens’s academic credentials and posts:

• Assistant Curator of Mammalogy & Ornithology, Michigan State University Museum
• Assistant Professor, Michigan State University Department of Zoology
• Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution
• Scientific Associate, Bird Group, Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Tring, UK, 2002 – present
• Member of Editorial Board, Systematics and Biodiversity, 2003 – present
• Adjunct Assistant Scientific Associate, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, 2003 – present
• American Ornithologists Union (AOU) Committee on Classification & Nomenclature, 1999 – present
• Associate Editor, The Ibis, 1998 – present
• Ph.D., University of Kansas, 1990
• M.S., Walla Walla College, 1983