Scientist
B.S., Virginia Tech; Ph.D., UC Santa Cruz
Autumn-Lynn Harrison is the Program Manager of the Migratory Connectivity Project and a research scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
Harrison is an ecologist and conservation biologist who has lived and worked in Australia, Kenya, South Africa and the U.S. Her interests include quantitative and field approaches to the study of animal movement and migration, the implications of managing for species with wide-ranging life histories and transboundary conservation.
For the past decade her work has focused on large marine vertebrates, including pinnipeds and seabirds. She was a researcher with the Tagging of Pacific Predators, a project of the Census of Marine Life, and contributed to United Nations efforts to identify ecologically significant areas for migratory marine animals in international waters.
Harrison earned B.S. Degrees in Environmental Science and Fisheries and Wildlife Science from Virginia Tech, a Graduate Diploma of Science in Tropical Marine Ecology and Fisheries Science from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Prior to joining the Migratory Bird Center in 2014, Harrison worked for the Society for Conservation Biology for 11 years and as a postdoctoral fellow with the Institute for Parks at Clemson University. At Clemson, she studied Bahamanian seabird migration and developed a "big-data" digital humanities project with historical archives of the U.S. National Park Service. She is also a trained park naturalist and graphic designer and has developed and led training workshops in interpretation and graphic design for the Tanzania National Parks Authority and the David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellows. Having grown up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with family roots going back to 1655, Harrison also has a life-long affection for the history, culture and environment of the Chesapeake Bay region.
Recent Publications:
