New Perspectives in Ornithology
Date and Time
Free Hybrid Lecture Event
Location: Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Speakers:
Scott Edwards, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; Curator of Ornithology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Michael Reed, Professor of Biology, Tufts University
Jingmai O'Connor, Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles, Field Museum of Natural History
Elizabeth P. Derryberry, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Ornithology—the science of birds—is experiencing a renaissance. Today, a new generation of tools is transforming how we study birds—from global citizen-science platforms such as eBird to satellite remote sensing and drone-based fieldwork. New Perspectives in Ornithology: 21st Century Dispatches across the World of Birds (Oxford University Press, 2026) reveals how these technologies are reshaping our understanding of bird life and the challenges birds face in a rapidly changing world. Volume editors Scott Edwards and Michael Reed will introduce the book’s key themes including bird ecology, evolution, behavior, citizen science, and conservation. Book contributors Jingmai O’Connor and Elizabeth Derryberry will then address how fossils are enhancing our understanding of bird evolution and how novel studies of bird songs are providing insights into how birds communicate and respond to environmental change.
Copies of New Perspectives in Ornithology will be available for purchase and signing following the program.
Presented in collaboration with the Nuttall Ornithological Club.
Supported by the Herman and Joan Suit Lecture Fund.
Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 5 pm.
Advance registration is recommended.
About the Speakers
Elizabeth P. Derryberry is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville whose research examines how animals communicate in a rapidly changing world. She holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, a PhD from Duke University, and previously served on the faculty at Tulane University. Derryberry uses bird song to investigate how environmental conditions and social interactions shape the production, perception, and evolution of communication signals. She is especially known for work on human-driven changes to acoustic environments, including a landmark COVID-19 “anthropause” study showing that quieter cities prompted birds to sing differently. She also directs the Collaborative for Animal Behavior at the University of Tennessee and is deeply committed to mentorship and public outreach.
Scott V. Edwards is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University and Curator of Ornithology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Professor Edwards is an evolutionary biologist with diverse interests in the evolution of birds and how they respond to a changing planet. Edwards has served as President of the Society for the Study of Evolution among other scientific societies and serves on the advisory boards of the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian), the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and the Adventure Cycling Association. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Jingmai O’Connor is a vertebrate paleontologist and Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. She holds a PhD from the University of Southern California and previously worked at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. Her research investigates the evolution of flight in dinosaurs, the dinosaur–bird transition, and the biology of early birds, with a focus on Paraves. She has published more than 160 scientific papers, including descriptions of 50 new species, and conducts fieldwork worldwide. In 2019 she received the Paleontological Society’s Charles Schuchert Award. O’Connor is also an active science communicator and author of the award-winning children’s book When Dinosaurs Conquered the Skies.
J. Michael Reed is Professor of Biology at Tufts University. People in Reed's lab work on a variety of problems related to the distribution and persistence of species on human-altered landscapes, mostly with birds. Reed is particularly interested in threatened and endangered species on islands, birds in coupled human-natural ecosystems such as working forests and wetlands, and the extinction risk of small, isolated populations. He holds a PhD from North Carolina State University where he worked on extinction risk of an endangered bird species. His recent research focuses on birds in Maine forests and in the Mojave Desert.