Susan Haig

Courtesy Professor of Wildlife Ecology
susan_haig [at] usgs.gov

Processes affecting persistence/extinction of small populations, conservation genetics, behavioral ecology of shorebirds, wetland ecology, mating systems.

Avian Population Genetics

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At OSU
Affiliated with: 
Fisheries and Wildlife
Courses Taught: 

FW 599 Special topics on birds and populations

Beyond OSU
Personal Links: 
Migratory Connectivity Project
Biography

Beyond OSU

Susan Haig spent 30 years as a federal scientist, mostly working at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center on the OSU Campus. She concurrently held a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at OSU where she attained the rank of Full Professor. At the USGS, she attained the rank of Senior Scientist (ST), and was only the third woman in the history of USGS to attain this rank. She retired from USGS in 2019 but remains a courtesy faculty member at OSU working on various research projects dealing with population genetics and recovery of small populations.

During her career, Dr. Haig maintained a Research Associate appointment with the Smithsonian Institution beginning with her postdoctoral fellowship at the National Zoo in 1987.

In 2008, she co-founded the Migratory Connectivity Project with Peter Marra from the Smithsonian Institution. Among MCPs many activities, she sponsored courses on movement ecology for graduate students in Latin America with in-person courses offered at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (Newport, OR), Mazatlan Mexico and Rio De Janiero, Brazil.

With funding as a Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Haig taught courses at the National Museum of Kenya (2011) and the University of Namibia (2015).

From 2012-2014, she served as President of the American Ornithologists’ Union, the largest professional ornithological society in the world.

Throughout her career, Dr. Haig has served on many endangered species recovery teams (e.g., Piping Plover, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Puerto Rican Parrot, Red Wolf, California Condor, Guam Rail, Micronesian Kingfisher, Mariana Crow, Northern Spotted Owl-Canada, Prairie Chicken) and lead the Great Lakes/Northern Great Plains Piping Plover Recovery Team for 12 years.