About (Biography)

Curt Stager is an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, and science journalist with a Ph.D. in biology and geology from Duke University (1985).  He has published over three dozen peer-reviewed articles in major journals including Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has written extensively for general audiences in periodicals such as National Geographic, The New York Times, Fast Company, and Adirondack Life.  Since 1990, he has also co-hosted Natural Selections, a weekly science program on North Country Public Radio that is syndicated internationally, and has toured widely to offer presentations on his research to audiences ranging, as one colleague put it, "from middle-schoolers to formal scholars." In 2013, he was named the New York State Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation.

In this age of specialization, Stager's  background in the natural sciences stands out for its depth and breadth.  He has taught marine ecology in the Caribbean, North Carolina, and Maine, and taught geology, biology, and evolution in upstate New York and paleolimnology in Tanzania.  A world authority on the ecological history of Africa and its lakes, he has also investigated El Niño in Peru, human impacts on lakes in Sweden, exploding lakes in Cameroon, bat pollination of flowers on the South Pacific islands of Melanesia, and modern climate change in the northeastern U.S. 

Stager brings his diverse background to bear on his books, radio programs, and presentations, blending the long-term perspective of a climate historian and multidisciplinary outlook of a biologist-geologist with the communication skills of a lifelong teacher and writer. As the first recipient of the Lussi-Draper Endowed Chair in lake Ecology and Paleoecology, he currently teaches at Paul Smith's College in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.  He also holds a research associate post at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, where he continues to investigate the long-term history of climate in Africa, South America, and the northeastern United States. 

In whatever spare time remains, he performs and records on banjo and guitar (YouTube).

SOME LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION:

Faculty web page CV

Africa paleo research

Natural Selections radio program, NCPR

Facebook

Science, Art & Music Festival

Fast Company blog

Presentation on Climate Whiplash, Paul Smith's College
on Maine Public Radio, and at Sydney Writers Festival, Australia

"Welcome to the Age of Humans"
A four-minute video Interview for Middlebury Magazine, 2013

"Reformed climate skeptic" interview for The Nature Conservancy

Curt plays "Blackbird" for "Birdie" the crow

"Return of the Wild" film

Climate Change Institute, Orono, ME 


Curt's climate anthem on electric banjo

Curt's  Walden Pond research in The New York Times





Selected reviews of presentations:

"It was a wonderful night of intellectual 'give and take.' The students enjoyed it immensely." - Kyle Dodson, Champlain College


"Your presentation was engaging and the students were following it with real interest." - Bruce Hodgson, Minerva Central School