James Van Remsen, Jr.
| James V. Remsen, Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Vanderbeek Remsen, Jr. September 21, 1949 Newark, New Jersey |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | ornithology |
| Institutions | Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University |
| Alma mater | Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley |
| Thesis | Geographical ecology of Neotropical Kingfishers (1978) |
| Doctoral advisor | Frank A. Pitelka |
| Doctoral students | 20 (Scott M. Lanyon, Angelo P. Capparella, Peter E. Scott, Kenneth V. Rosenberg, Andrew W. Kratter, R. Terry Chesser, Manuel Marín A., Mario Cohn-Haft, Alexandre Aleixo, Alison R. Styring, Kazuya Naoki, Christopher C. Witt, Thomas Valqui, Brian J. O’Shea, David L. Anderson, Santiago Claramunt, Luciano Naka, Richard E. Gibbons, Gustavo A. Bravo, Andrés M. Cuervo) |
| Known for | Founder of the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithologists' Union |
| Notable awards | Brewster Medal (American Ornithologists' Union), LSU Foundation Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award, LSU College of Basic Sciences Graduate Teaching Award |
| Author abbrev. (zoology) | Remsen |
| Spouse | Amy C. Shutt (m. 2010- present) |
James Vanderbeek "Van" Remsen, Jr. (born September 21, 1949 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American ornithologist. His main research field is the Neotropical avifauna. In 1999, he founded the South American Classification Committee. In 2013, he was honored with the Brewster Medal of the American Ornithologists' Union.
At the age of five Van Remsen developed his passion for field observation and at the age of eleven he was a keen birder. In 1967, he earned his high-school diploma at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. In summer 1968 he worked for the Denver Wildlife Research Center. In 1971, he graduated both to Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts in biology at the Stanford University, where among others Harold A. Mooney, David F. DeSante, and Paul R. Ehrlich were his advisors. In 1978, he received his PhD in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley under the direction of Frank Pitelka with his dissertation Geographical ecology of Neotropical Kingfishers., based on almost two years of fieldwork in Amazonian Colombia and Bolivia. In the same year he became a professor and curator of birds at Louisiana State University.
He published his first scientific paper at age 20, and published other technical papers during his graduate student years, including the article On taking field notes in the journal American Birds which became much-noticed by field observers and American birders in the following decades.
While at LSU, Remsen spent a total of two years in the remote areas of the Amazon and the Andes, which became the basis for the book An Annotated List of the Birds of Bolivia, which was published in 1989 in collaboration with Melvin Alvah Traylor, Jr., as well as many technical papers. In 1991, Van Remsen published the monograph Community Ecology of Neotropical Kingfishers, and in 1997 produced the monograph "Studies in Neotropical Ornithology Honoring Ted Parker" "Ornithological Monographs"" No. 48: 1-917), a collection of 51 peer-reviewed papers honoring his best friend Ted Parker after his untimely death. In 2007, he co-edited with Carla Cicero another monograph honoring the career his mentor Ned K. Johnson: "Festschrift to Ned K. Johnson: Geographic Variation and Evolution in Birds. "Ornithological Monographs" 63: 1-114."
...
Wikipedia