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Hello, and welcome to my homepage!

My name is Jeffrey Brown, and I am a new Assistant Professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia, PA. My research explores the human dimensions of urban wildlife management and conservation. Please look around the website to learn more about my research, recent publications, and teaching.

At a glance:

Research:
Overview: I consider myself an urban ecologist and conservation biologist. My research aims to promote biodiversity within urban ecosystems by understanding how species are distributed in developed areas and how urbanization shapes wildlife communities. To this end, my research investigates the ecological communities within urban areas and the people who call these areas home. Understanding how people perceive and react to wildlife not only provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that influence wildlife distribution but can also help improve people's well-being and increase environmental equity.

Current Work (Fall 2022/Spring 2023):
Exploring how Urban Ecological Infrastructure Shapes Wildlife Communities in Urban Ecosystems
Urban environments contain a multitude of different land uses and potential habitats for wildlife, including urban ecological infrastructure (UEI). While many conservationists traditionally think of protected areas as a primary tool for preserving wildlife, built environments often limit the amount of land that can be set aside solely for conservation. As a result, wildlife in urban environments may rely on a wide variety of UEI, including parks, graveyards, community gardens, or urban wetlands, for resources and habitat (Aronson et al. 2017). Additionally, the establishment or existence of a greenspace in an urban environment does not ensure wildlife community’s persistence in that greenspace over time (Brown et al. 2019). Understanding how and if wildlife can persist and thrive in urban environments requires investigating these systems through integrated socio-ecological perspectives. My research investigates how peoples’ direct use of green spaces and indirect impacts on greenspaces (edge effects, addition of supplemental food) shape urban wildlife communities. Through a socio-ecological approach, we can better understand how wildlife use key features such as urban ecological infrastructure to allow city planners and conservation practitioners to work together to help preserve and promote wildlife in urban landscapes.  

PASS - The Phoenix Area Social Survey
I am working alongside Dr. Kelli Larson on the Phoenix Area Social Survey (PASS) 2021. This survey is a continuation of a long-term social survey run by CAP LTER, which investigates people’s perceptions, values, and behaviors on several key environmental issues. For the past year (2021), Dr. Larson and I coordinated the logistics of launching a survey sent out to over 1,500 people across the Phoenix Metropolitan Region. I spent the last few months creating a report detailing the survey methodology and overview results. As assistant director of PASS, I also directly managed all the survey data, cleaned this data for distribution, and provided supplementary environmental data correlated with the locations of each respondent. Over the next few months, Dr. Larson and I plan on investigating key questions from PASS, which evaluated people’s perception of ionic desert species and their willingness to engage in conservation efforts.

Investigating Human-Wildlife Interactions via Community Science
Community-collected data from platforms such as EBird and iNaturalist provide information on human-wildlife interaction throughout landscapes. Integrating this information with other datasets, including the USGS National Land Cover Database and the American Community Survey can provide insights into who interacts with wildlife and where these interactions occur. This information can then be used to promote both wildlife conservation and equitable urban designs to promote environmental justice.

Teaching:
Overview: My educational style revolves around student-centered learning to promote scientific literacy and quantitative reasoning. As an instructor, I hope to inspire life-long connections with the course material by allowing students to take ownership of their learning. By centering courses around independent projects, I foster self-guided exploration, enabling students to deepen their knowledge of the subject matter while reinforcing effective communication skills.

Current Courses:
Spring 2023
La Salle University
BIO 320: Biostatistics - This is the required statistics course for all biology majors. The class begins with discussions of distributions and probability and covers multiple univariate and multivariate statistical tests.
BIO 474: Quantitative Methods in Ecology - This course explores various common techniques used by ecologists, including population viability analysis, tree tagging, distance sampling, and mark-recapture methodology. Students learn about techniques and design experimental protocols during lectures and then apply their experimental design during lab.

Fall 2022
La Salle University
BIO 230: Diversity, Evolution, and Ecology - This course is the third in a series of introductory biology courses for students at La Salle. The course introduces evolutionary biology and is a primer for ecological learning.

Recent Courses:
Summer 2022
Arizona State University
BIO 411 - Due to the popularity of this course, it is offered every semester. (see description below)
Rutgers University
BIO 351: Principles of Ecology - This is a comprehensive, introductory course about interactions between organism and their environments. Students will focus on interactions between organisms and their environments, particularly general ecological principles.

Spring 2022
Arizona State University
BIO 411 - Due to the popularity of this course, it is offered every semester. (see description below)
Rutgers University
BIO 325: Vertebrate Zoology - This course explores the vertebrate tree of life by focusing on how evolutionary processes shape diversity. Students also explore how comparative morphology provides insight into vertebrate evolutionary history.

Fall 2021
Arizona State University
BIO 411: Quantitative Methods for Ecology and Conservation - This course focuses on quantitative methods utilized in population modeling and statistical analysis. Students use the programing language R to analyze data from CAP LTER to conduct independent research questions and practice the skills they learn throughout the course.