Professor of Environmental and Ocean Sciences
University of San Diego Faculty
Drew Talley, PhD, is the current director of the Master of Science in Environmental and Ocean Sciences program at the University of San Diego. He teaches a variety of courses including Environmental Data Analysis, Organisms & Ecosystems, Graduate Core Seminar and Wetland Ecology. His overall research focuses on understanding connectivity across habitat boundaries, and assessing how that interdependence between systems changes with anthropogenic influence both locally (e.g., through habitat loss) and globally (e.g., through climate change). His areas of expertise include marine ecology, coastal/wetland ecology and island biogeography.
Talley’s research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms and generalities behind habitat linkages, in particular spatial subsidy, and integrating these connections into studies of coastal ecosystems. Examples include research focused on the connectivity of habitats in southern California estuaries; spatial subsidy at the land-sea interface in the Gulf of California; food web dynamics in coastal systems of northern Baja California, and the ecosystem-level impacts of species invasions in southern California. Throughout all of his research, Talley deeply integrates education and applied conservation biology into his fundamental science questions.
Talley has published numerous papers and book chapters, and has been the recipient of awards from California Sea Grant, UC Mexus and the National Science Foundation, among others.