Clare Alsan is the Associate Director of the Landscape Conservation Initiative, a Northern Arizona University research center dedicated to solutions-oriented conservation research performed in partnership with stakeholders. She is a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow, a Wilburforce Fellow in Conservation Science, and a Flinn-Brown Fellow. Clare received her BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona and earned her PhD in Ecology from the University of California-Davis. She is a fifth-generation Arizonan and currently an Assistant Professor in NAU’s School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability.
Clare’s research spans a wide diversity of conservation questions, but a common theme she often returns to is the role of birds in ecological functions and species interactions, particularly seed dispersal and pollination. She studies how altered bird communities and distributions may impact full ecosystems, and how human activities can more sustainably support bird habitats and populations. She feels that it is an enormous privilege to serve on the SJV Management Board because her earliest experiences and explorations of ecology were in the Sonoran Desert. Conservation of the unique species and interactions in the Sonoran Desert region is a top passion for her.
Clare’s favorite regional habitat is the Sonoran Desert Upland, and the incredible diversity of birds that occupy that ecoregion. Clare explained, “There’s nothing as thrilling as watching a hummingbird visit an ocotillo or a Gila Woodpecker fly out of a saguaro nest.”