Dr. Craighead is a Senior Consultant with Biodiversity Unlimited LLC with more than 45 years of expertise as a field ecologist, population geneticist, and GIS technician with decades of experience in conservation planning. His current research interests focus on aspects of conservation planning based upon focal or umbrella species: population and metapopulation persistence, gene flow, habitat connectivity, core habitat, and protected areas. Dr. Craighead is Executive Director of the Craighead Institute in Bozeman, Montana and is also a Research Affiliate Professor in the Ecology Department at Montana State University. He is a member of the IUCN World Committee on Protected Areas, Society for Conservation Biology, the Society for Conservation GIS and the Explorers Club.

 

       He has completed studies on road ecology in Montana aimed at understanding the barrier effect of highways on wildlife movement and identifying key locations where safe crossing structures can be implemented in the context of wildlife habitat and land use. He is a partner with ARC Solutions – Animal Road Crossings working to facilitate highway crossings. Dr. Craighead has provided guidance for Forest Planning and other land-use planning processes in regards to the effects of roads, trails, and mechanized and motorized recreation on wildlife movement and security.

 

     Dr. Craighead co-edited the book "Conservation Planning: Shaping the Future" which was published by ESRI Press in February 2013. He has numerous other scientific publications, including three book chapters and published one popular book: "Bears of the World".  Dr. Craighead has been the Executive Director of the Craighead Institute from 1994 to the present. He focuses his time developing and coordinating research, building partnerships, and writing.

 

     After graduating from Carleton College in 1969, Dr. Craighead went to work for the Peace Corps in Fiji and Samoa. He then received his M.Sc. in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied seabirds in the Pribilof Islands of Alaska. After 10 years living in Alaska, he completed a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Montana State University studying grizzly bear genetics in the Alaskan arctic.