Gray Merriam, PhD., DSC, Box 93, Arden, ON K0H 1B0, 613 335 3589, gmerriam60@gmail.com Professor Emeritus (Landscape Ecology, Conservation Biology and Environmental Sciences).
Gray Merriam retired in 1997 from a 40 year career in academic research, graduate training and teaching. He was President of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, Series Editor of the IALE Study Series in Landscape Ecology, on the Editorial Board of Landscape Ecology, and, at Carleton University, directed: the Landscape Ecology Research Laboratory, the Environmental Science Program, the Environment and Policy Institute, the Department of Biology and the Ottawa-Carleton Institute of Biology.
In 1997 he received the Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award from the United States Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology and in 1999 he received the Distinguished Scholarship Award of the International Association for Landscape Ecology and was awarded an Honourary Lifetime Membership.
He has published about 100 primary research papers in landscape ecology in international scientific journals and books. He has applied knowledge from basic research to conservation planning in the cultural landscape, in parks and reserves and in regional and greater ecosystem planning. He has field experience in North America, Scandinavia, Western Europe, Africa and Australia. His scientific papers have addressed: spatially-divided populations, woodland species adapting to habitat fragmentation by farmland, conservation planning in parks and in regional plans, the ecology of white-footed mice, chipmunks, marmots, pillbugs and decomposition in deciduous forest. Other contributions address the ecological content of policies related to biodiversity, forest management and regional resource management.
Gray Merriam earned his B.S.A. from the University of Toronto and his PhD from Cornell. In 2003 he was awarded an honourary DSc by the University of Moncton. He worked at Cornell and the University of Texas in Austin for 12 years and he directed the Landscape Ecology Laboratory at Carleton University until retirement in 1997. He has also been associated with several universities and conservation research institutes in Europe.
He is the principal scientist in GM Group, a consulting firm specializing in ecological land management but currently works largely pro bono with volunteer stewardship groups. He was one of the founders of the Frontenac Environmental Partnership and was founding President of the Friends of the Salmon River and is past Chair of the Frontenac Stewardship Council (now the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation). In 2005 he received a “Conservation Pioneer Award” from Conservation Ontario and in 2009 he was named “Green Cottager” of Canada by “Cottage Life”.