William (Bill) Montevecchi

Bill is a John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) where he has led research on seabirds for more than 40 years. At the nexus of the Psychology, Biology, and Ocean Sciences departments at MUN, Bill initiated a long-term interdisciplinary ecosystem research program focused on the behavioural ecology of seabirds, marine food webs, and biological oceanography. Throughout his career, Bill has guided new generations of seabird researchers, and his enormous influence reaches far—from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and around the globe. In his own words, Bill has been “privileged to work with an incredibly powerful group of graduate students, post-docs, and now colleagues who continue to raise the bar on key ecological and environmental questions.” Most of his students have gone on to become well-positioned, internationally recognized marine scientists in their own right in Canada, the U.S., Europe, South America, and beyond. As well as hundreds of peer-reviewed publications, he and his colleagues have produced the longest dietary databases for Northern Gannets and Common Murres in the Northwest Atlantic, and their trailblazing tracking research provides state-of-the-art risk analysis on a global scale. He is highly collaborative in nature and works closely with scientists from many other fields to tackle complex and intriguing questions. At his core, he believes conservation is a vital shared concern (how could it be otherwise), and has used seabird research to support evidence-based decision-making in environmental assessments of ocean developmental proposals, and influenced real-world issues, such as mitigating seabird bycatch in gillnets.

For his exemplary, long-term contributions to seabird science, conservation, and education in all forms, the Pacific Seabird Group honors William A. Montevecchi with a Lifetime Achievement Award.