Dr. Ann Harding
Ann has been immersed in marine ecology research, monitoring and education since 1991. Most of her work has focused on seabirds in remote northern regions, with field studies in Scotland, Wales, Iceland, Spitsbergen, Greenland, and Alaska. She was affiliated with the US Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center from 1993-2010, and was a research associate at Alaska Pacific University from 2002-2010.
Ann earned her PhD in 2011 on the ‘Parental Effort in an Arctic Seabird’ in Leeds University, England, her Msc on the Reproductive Biology and Feeding Ecology of Horned Puffins’ at Durham University, and a BSc in Zoology at Sheffield University. She has published more than 25 scientific papers.
The main theme of Ann’s research is how life history strategies determine the ability of different species to respond to changes in the environment. Most of her research has focused on long-lived seabirds and, in particular, understanding their response to changes in prey availability. Her work also has some more applied aspects, including impacts of climate change and fishery exploitation, and the long-term monitoring of seabirds.
In addition to research and monitoring, Ann enjoys sharing her passion for seabirds and wild places with kids. She formed a close relationship with a Greenlandic community during her PhD study years. During this 4-year period, Ann conducted class lessons on the project in the local school, collected data with Greenlandic kids at the study site, and in 2007 hosted a PolarTREC teacher from California in the field. http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/greenland-seabird-ecology. She is currently coordinating a seabird education for youth on the Pribilof Islands www.seabirdyouth.org, managing outreach for a handful of seabird research projects, and helps teach an outdoor pre-school group in Cordova, Alaska.
Ann recently started her own consulting firm, “Auk Ecological Consulting,” and is based in Cordova, Alaska, where she lives with her husband and two sons in a walk-in location by the sea.
