Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award

James C. Beasley, Terrell Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources in the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and Terrell Professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, has developed an acclaimed research program in wildlife ecology and conservation. His innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of radioactive contamination in the environment and its effects as an ecological stressor have challenged fundamental assumptions about the status and health of wildlife in radiologically contaminated landscapes, leading to the discovery of abundant and diverse wildlife communities. Since 2014, he has served as the International Atomic Energy Agency’s wildlife adviser to the Fukushima Prefecture government in Japan in response to the 2011 tsunami and nuclear accident. He is recognized as one of the world’s experts on invasive wild pigs, building one of the most important academic research programs studying invasive wild pigs in the US. And he is engaged in high-impact carnivore conservation research projects to reduce human-wildlife conflicts globally.