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Assistant Professor of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech

Dr. Dayer is a conservation social scientist. Her research program focuses on understanding people’s and organizations’ conservation behavior, especially related to private lands habitat conservation, human-wildlife conflict, endangered species management, citizen science, and conservation funding. As part of this research, she explores the role that policy tools and educational interventions can play in influencing behavior.

In relation to global change, Dr. Dayer is particularly interested in landowners’ willingness to take action to minimize the impacts of sea level rise on wildlife habitat and the implementation gap between climate adaptation science and resource managers’ decision-making. She is currently studying the role of the Department of Interior’s Climate Science Centers as boundary organizations and facilitators of actionable science and co-production of knowledge.

Dr. Dayer is an Assistant Professor of Human Dimensions in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, and she teaches an undergraduate/graduate level course in Human Dimensions of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. She came to Virginia Tech from Cornell Lab of Ornithology and State University of New York – Environmental Science and Forestry.

Dr. Dayer is actively engaged with the wildlife conservation community. She serves as President of the Society for Conservation Biology Social Science Working Group, as a member of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan’s Human Dimensions Working Group, and as a founding member of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative's Human Dimensions Subcommittee. She works closely with multiple migratory bird habitat joint ventures that implement international bird conservation plans at the regional level.

Experience

  • –present
    Assistant Professor of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech