Faculty Achievement Recognition
The 2007 Honorees
Faculty Achievement Recognition
The 2007 Honorees
David W. Steadman
Curator, Division of Birds
Department of Natural History, Florida Museum of Natural History
1995
Degrees earned:
Ph.D., Geosciences, University of Arizona, 1982
M.S., Zoology, University of Florida, 1975
B.S., Edinboro State College, 1973
In addition to his normal productivity of five to 10 papers per year and his stellar work in building one of the world’s leading avian osteology collections at UF, Professor David Steadman has published a monumental book entitled Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds (University of Chicago Press). Although scientists working in the South Pacific have generated some of the most influential principles in anthropology and biology, Steadman questions their theories in light of new data that he has generated through his excavations on many South Pacific islands. Steadman documented stable island communities for long periods of time before l the arrival of humans, who then caused a wave of massive extinction. Therefore, the patterns scientists now observe are very different than those during most of the evolutionary history of the region. As a result of Dr. Steadman’s meticulous and indefatigable fieldwork, far more is now known about the biology of these islands and the consequences of overexploitation of resources.
