Dee Boersma, Conservation Biologist

How do you describe your job when you meet people at a party?
I work with penguins.
Conservation biologist and penguin researcher Dr. Dee Boersma holds the Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science and Professor of Biology at the University of Washington. She directs the Center for Penguins as Ocean Sentinels and is Co-Chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature SSC Penguin Specialist Group.
Keep up with Dr. Boersma’s research at PenguinStudies.org. Cutest research subjects ever!
Dr. Boersma received her BS degree in Biology and Conservation at Central Michigan University (1969) and her Ph.D. in Zoology at Ohio State University (1974). Her career in ecology developed from an early interest in nature and wildlife, which was encouraged by her parents. “I am interested in using seabirds as reflectors of the environment and for several decades have concentrated my research on penguins,” she wrote in a survey for ESA in 2009. She added that the best advice she received, and passes on to others, was to “Find your passion and find a way to do that as a job.”

“I hope to educate the public and help them see that the quality of our environment depends on what each one of us does. …Education helps people in making better decisions and we must have better decisions if we are to share the earth with other forms of life. Humans have a poor record of restraint in their breeding or consuming. Our research has helped reduce the illegal discharge of petroleum along the coast of Chubut, Argentina.”

From an “Ecologist Directory” maintained by the ESA Education Office about 2004-2011. Profile circa 2009.
Quick interview with Dr. Boersma at the University of Washington.