He is a member of the graduate fields of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, International Development, and Conservation and Sustainable Development, and is an Associate Member of the Latin American Studies Program. After receiving his Ph.D. in Zoology (Ecology and Evolution concentration) in 1990, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand (1991-1993), and joined the Cornell faculty in 1995. He has worked extensively in the Neotropics, including research sites in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and Trinidad. In addition to teaching at Cornell, he has served as an invited course instructor in Costa Rica for the Organization for Tropical Studies and at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.