Monitoring birds - Protecting waters - Inspiring change
Dr. Keith Grasman
Keith Grasman is a professor of biology at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and co-chair of WOWRI’s Science and Education Committee. He has studied the effects of environmental pollutants on wildlife, especially fish-eating birds such as gulls, terns, herons, cormorants, and loons, for almost four decades. He is interested in how chemical impacts on the immune and endocrine systems affect reproduction, development, and health in both free-living wildlife and laboratory systems.
He has studied heavy metals, organochlorine chemicals such as PCBs and DDT, and contaminants of emerging concern like PFAS, and he has participated in disease monitoring in wild birds including for Newcastle Disease Virus and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. He is an experienced field biologist, research team leader, and boat captain, with extensive experience navigating the big waters of the Great Lakes and smaller waters of the Adirondack Mountains.