Shawn J. Riley

Endowed Professors College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

• Parrish Storrs Lovejoy Professor of Wildlife Management

• Fisheries and Wildlife

Bio

Shawn Riley, the Parrish Storrs Lovejoy Professor of Wildlife Management, is a professor and chair of the graduate program in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.  Riley’s research and work is heavily focused on human-wildlife interactions, how people interpret those interactions into impacts, and how those impacts affect the acceptance capacity for wildlife and wildlife management.

Riley received both his BSc in biological sciences and MS in fish and wildlife management from Montana State University, and he earned his PhD in wildlife science from Cornell University. Riley came to Michigan State University in 2001 from Cornell University, where he was a research associate in the Human Dimensions Research Unit and a lecturer in the Department of Natural Resources. He spent 2009-2010 as a senior Fulbright Fellow and guest professor in the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at Umeå.

His current research projects include the extent and effect of game meat consumption under various forms of governance in the U.S. and Sweden; causal factors in the decline of deer hunting in Michigan; human tolerance of wildlife in suburban settings; public trust and confidence in state wildlife agencies; and, assessment of a long-standing game management cooperative in Pennsylvania. In the land grant tradition, Riley has a three-way assignment in research, teaching, and outreach.