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Scott VanderKooi

Scott VanderKooi is a Supervisory Biologist with over 30 years of experience as a scientist and science manager working on the rivers and dryland ecosystems of the western U.S. Much of my work has emphasized applied science and adaptive management in support of natural resource management.

Scott is the Director of the Southwest Biological Science Center. He began his career as a fish biologist conducting research on salmonids, catostomids and cyprinids in the northwest U.S. throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Areas of research included stress physiology, disease, migratory behavior, predation, and early life-history studies. He shifted to managing science programs in the mid-2000s initially in the Klamath River basin, and then in the Colorado River basin as Chief of the USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center and now as the Director of the Southwest Biological Science Center.