Richard Primack

Richard Primack became inspired to study plants and forests while taking a course at the Harvard Forest as a Junior. He is a now a Professor of Plant Ecology at Boston University with interests in conservation biology and climate change biology. Richard has carried out extensive botanical field work in Malaysia, New Zealand, Japan. He authored the first and still most widely-used conservation biology textbooks, also produced in 38 locally adapted editions with local co-authors. Recently he wrote an African conservation biology textbook available on-line for free. Richard is known for investigating climate change impacts on plants, birds, and insects by comparing Henry David Thoreau’s 1850s observations with modern observations. He has been involved in educating the public about the effects of climate change through public talks and popular writing, including the book Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods.