Eric V. Lonsdorf, Ph.D.,
Research Associate
Alexander Center for Applied Population Biology

Eric Lonsdorf graduated from Carleton College in 1996 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2004. His dissertation focused on the consequences of habitat fragmentation for prairie plant communities. At the University of Minnesota he helped develop an approach for conserving species in “working landscapes” – landscapes that integrate and attempt to meet both economic and conservation goals.  This approach is being applied to the Willamette River Basin in Oregon. Before working with the zoo, he collaborated with the Evanston branch of the U.S. Forest Service and Chicago Department of Environment to help citizens of the Hegewisch neighborhood determine the best management plan for pollution remediation and marsh restoration near Lake Calumet.  

Lonsdorf is a post-doctoral researcher with the zoo's program in applied population biology and a post-doctoral researcher at Northern Arizona University as part of the National Science Foundation’s Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research initiative.  He also collaborates with zoo staff in the areas of epidemiology and in wildlife conservation to develop a disease risk model chimpanzees and humans in Gombe National Park in Tanzania.