Joe Roman is a
conservation biologist, marine ecologist, and author of the books ''Whale'',
''
Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act'',
and ''Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World''. His
conservation research includes studies of the historical population size of
whales
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...
,
the role of cetaceans in the
nitrogen cycle
The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmosphere, atmospheric, terrestrial ecosystem, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can ...
, the relationship between biodiversity and disease, and the genetics of invasions. He is the founding editor of "Eat the Invaders", a website dedicated to controlling invasive species by eating them.
Roman is a Fellow at the
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, commonly referred to as the University of Vermont (UVM), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont, United States. Foun ...
.
He earned an
AB with Honors in Visual and Environmental Studies from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1985 and an
MA in
wildlife ecology and conservation from the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
.
Roman was awarded his
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
from Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology in 2003; his
dissertation was titled ''Tracking Anthropogenic Change in the North Atlantic Ocean with Genetic Tools''.
During his PhD, he co-authored, with
Stephen Palumbi, a paper for the journal ''
Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
'' that presented evidence that whale populations had been considerably larger prior to whaling than had previously been thought.
By 2009, he was working with the Gund Institute with a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship from the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
,
and also beginning a collaboration with the
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...
looking at
loss of biodiversity. He had a Fulbright Fellowship at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil in 2012, and he was the 2014–15
Sarah and Daniel Hrdy Visiting Fellow in Conservation Biology at Harvard. Born in
Queens
Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...
, New York, Roman lives in
Vermont
Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
.
Books
* Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World (2023, Little, Brown Spark)
*
Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act (2011, Harvard University Press)
* Whale (2006, Reaktion Books)
His book ''Listed'' won the 2012
Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservation movement, conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) are credited with advancing mari ...
Environment Book Award from the
Society of Environmental Journalists
The Society of Environmental Journalists is a non-profit national journalism organization created by and for journalists who report environmental topics in the news media. On its website, the organization says that "SEJ’s mission is to strengt ...
.
Journal articles
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*
*
*
*
*
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*
Popular articles
* “America’s New Whale Is Now at Extinction’s Doorstep.” The New York Times, March 6, 2021.
* “Vulnerable Species in the Crosshairs,” with Ya-Wei Li, The New York Times, July 26, 2018.
* “Can the Plover Save New York?” Slate, August 23, 2013.
* “Sharks Help Maintain Health of the Oceans,” Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2005.
* "Where Bright Lights and Night Life Are Nature's Doing." The Sunday New York Times, March 6, 2005.
* "A Place Where All the Snowflakes Are Still Different." The New York Times, January 2, 2004.
References
External links
*
Eat the Invaders
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roman, Joe
Living people
American conservation biologists
Harvard University alumni
University of Florida alumni
University of Vermont faculty
American male writers
American scientists
1970 births