Adriaan M. Dokter

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Center for Avian Population Studies

Research Associate

Adriaan Dokter is the project leader for BirdCast at the Cornell lab of Ornithology, where he also leads the BirdCast/Aeroecology research group. After receiving a Ph.D. at the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam, he studied animal movement during postdoctoral appointments at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, the University of Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

With a background in physics, his research bridges the disciplines of ecology, computer science, physics, and meteorology, addressing questions about the effects of global change on the distribution and seasonal migration of birds from continental-scale movements of species to fine-scale behavior of individuals flying through the atmosphere.

Adriaan uses weather radar networks and citizen science data to address questions in migration ecology, including when and where birds migrate, when and where birds die within the annual cycle, and how shifting patterns in mortality and recruitment of young birds cause bird abundances to change. He also develops software tools for biologists using weather radar as a tool in their research, including the R-package bioRad for biological analysis of weather radar data.