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Chris Schell
Chris Schell is an Assistant Professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. He received his BA in Psychology from Columbia University and his PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Chicago in 2015. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Professor Schell was an Assistant Professor of Urban Ecology at the University of Washington and a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Colorado State University. Professor Schell studies the intersections of society, ecology, and evolution in cities to understand how wildlife (mainly mammalian carnivores) are rapidly adapting to urbanization. The work of the Schell lab combines behavioral, physiological, and genomic approaches to demonstrate the myriad consequences of historical and contemporary inequities on organismal, population, and community-level dynamics of wildlife. In addition, Professor Schell and his lab leverage human dimensions and community-engaged data streams to decipher how wildlife adaptation and human perceptions create landscapes of risk that contribute to human-carnivore conflict. This interdisciplinary work requires integrating principles from the natural sciences with urban studies to address how systemic racism and oppression affect urban ecosystems, while simultaneously highlighting the need for environmental justice, civil rights, and equity as the bedrock of biological conservation and our fight against the climate crisis.