Andrew Gosler is Professor of Ethno-ornithology at the University of Oxford, where he holds a joint position between the Department of Biology and the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, where he is also Head of the Institute of Human Sciences. His teaching includes introductory courses on the Principles of Evolution, Ecology, Ethnobiology and Ornithology, and an Honours Option course in Biological Conservation. His research over more than 40 years spans pure and applied aspects of ornithology, including eco-morphology of birds, the function of speckling on birds’ eggs, the ethno-ornithology of bird folk-names, the natural-history knowledge of people in post-industrial communities and the role of religion in environmental stewardship. He is Research Director of the Ethno-ornithology World Atlas, and a Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford.
With colleague Sonia Tidemann, he co-edited the book Ethno-ornithology: Birds, Indigenous Peoples, Culture and Society, published in 2010 in hardback and in paperback in the following year. The book shows that within the broader context of ethno-biology, ethno-ornithology has hitherto largely concerned relatively localized anthropological studies of the ways in which indigenous people engage (or have engaged) with birds for food, companionship, art and inspiration, in connection with spirituality, and as a significant element of folk-taxonomy and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and how these diverse relationships are expressed linguistically.
Andrew has served on the Scientific Programme Committees of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC Tokyo 2014) and European Ornithologists’ Union (Riga 2012). He is a contributor to the Religion and Conservation Research Collaborative (RCRC) of the Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group (RCBWG) of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB).
A former Trustee of A Rocha UK and advisor to A Rocha International, Andrew helped with the formation of a new A Rocha initiative in Nigeria. He is Co-convenor of Oxpeace – the Oxford University Network for Peace Studies. As a Council member of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) he chaired the UK Bird Ringing Committee (1995-1999). He edited the journal Bird Study (1993-1998) for the BTO, and Ibis (1998-2006) for the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU). Andrew was awarded the Tucker Medal of the BTO in 1999, and the Union Medal of the BOU in 2012. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Professed member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis, and was ordained Deacon in the Church of England in 2018, and Priest in 2019. Andrew was made an Honorary Life Member of the BOU in 2018 and elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) in 2019. He is also a Vice-President of the Oxford Ornithological Society having formerly served as President (1994-2015).
