Rate My Professor Daniel Thornton

Daniel Thornton serves as Associate Professor and Associate Director for Graduate Programs in the School of the Environment at Washington State University. He holds a PhD in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida awarded in 2010, an MS in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida awarded in 2003, and a BA magna cum laude in Geology from Carleton College awarded in 1998. His prior appointments include Assistant Professor at Washington State University, Clinical Assistant Professor at Washington State University, Adjunct Professor at Trent University, Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Biology at Trent University, and Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow in Environmental Studies at Southwestern University.

Thornton’s research centers on carnivore ecology and conservation, species distribution modeling and connectivity modeling, the impacts of land use and climate change on species, and large-scale survey and monitoring. His work integrates field studies, ecological theory, and spatial and statistical analyses to examine ecology and management of species in fragmented or human-dominated landscapes, the influence of climate change and deforestation on populations, large-scale distribution patterns and range dynamics, and the influence of scale on species responses to environmental drivers, with a primary focus on mammalian carnivores and their prey across temperate and tropical systems in the Americas. He maintains the Mammal Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab and collaborates with government agencies and NGOs to inform species and landscape management decisions.