Rachel Short

Rachel Short is an assistant professor in natural resource management at South Dakota State University. She also serves as coordinator of the Wizipan Leadership and Sustainability Program for Indigenous students. Previously, she was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Texas A&M and Georgia Tech.

Short is an ecologist who studies how communities of large mammals respond to environmental, climatic, and human pressures. She is interested in how ecological and evolutionary processes drive community assemblage patterns and what we can learn from traits in the fossil record to inform modern conservation and management. A portion of her research also focuses on connecting scientists and nonscientists at places of informal learning. Her goal is to combine her research interests to support conservation, management, and environmental stewardship.

Ph.D. in Ecosystem Science and Management, Texas A&M University, 2020
M.S.T. in Teaching - Secondary Earth and Life Sciences, University of Maine, 2016
M.S. in Geosciences, East Tennessee State University, 2013
B.A. in Biology, Illinois Wesleyan University, 2009