Prof. Richard Ross Ross Shaker

Prior to joining the State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), Dr. Richard Ross Shaker was an Associate Professor of Environmental and Urban Sustainability at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU; formerly Ryerson University).  Attaining his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his dissertation investigated sustainable urbanization and landscape function, which was supported by a Fulbright Fellowship to the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. Dr. Shaker's current research is in the realm of human-landscape coevolution and global ecology. As Homo sapiens continue to stretch the Earth beyond its biocapacity, it is integral to elucidate their patterns and processes through space and time. Dr. Shaker's research group has actively investigated interactions between natural and social systems for sustainable development, ecosystem management, global change resilience, and environmental planning purposes. Dr. Shaker's future applied research looks at operationalizing sustainable development across spatial and temporal scales while theoretically focusing at the nexus of evolutionary theory, learning and behavior change, planning, and policy responses. Lastly, to operationalize sustainable development research into practice, Dr. Shaker consults through his environmental design and planning company, GEOECO Inc.