UCF’s Distinguished Speaker Series; Dr. Harry Greene

“Why and How to Appreciate Nature”

Dr. Greene is the Stephen Weiss Presidential Fellow and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. He is a preeminent author and scholar on the natural history of reptiles and amphibians and of late the re-wilding of conservation. His presentation will describe how natural history plays a vital role in enhancing our appreciation for organisms and environments, thereby influencing the value judgments that ultimately underlie all conservation. The diversity of life on earth is under serious threats from multiple human-­‐related causes, and science plays well-known roles in addressing management of this problem.

Dr. Greene graduated from Texas Wesleyan College in 1968, served three years as an army medic and then earned an MA from the University of Texas at Arlington and a PhD from the University of Tennessee. He was a professor and curator of herpetology in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, for two decades before moving to Cornell in 1999. Dr. Greene taught vertebrate natural history, herpetology, introductory biology, evolution and biodiversity, desert ecology, and graduate field ecology; his research focuses on the evolution, ecology, and conservation of snakes and other predators.

His honors have included the Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award, Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award, elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and California Academy of Sciences, president of the American Society of ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and Cornell’s Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellowship. Dr. Greene’s first book, Snakes: the Evolution of Mystery in Nature, won a PEN Literary Award and made the New York Times’ annual list of 100 Most Notable Books

For more information on Dr. Greene’s presentation, click here.