James R. Karr

Current Position: Professor of Fisheries and Zoology; Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering, Environmental Health, and Public Affairs

Address: University of Washington; P. O. Box 355020, Seattle, Washington 98195-5020 USA

Telephone: (206) 685-4784; Fax: (206) 528-0885; email: jrkarr@u.washington.edu

He received a B. Sc. in fish and wildlife biology from Iowa State University and M. Sc. and Ph. D. in zoology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He did postdoctoral research in ecology at Princeton University and at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the latter including an 18-month study of tropical forest in Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Guinea. Fellowship support from the Smithsonian included a summer visit (10 weeks) to Panama in 1967, a predoctoral fellowship in Panama in 1968-69, and a postdoctoral fellowship for 18 months in 1971-72. He was on the faculty at Purdue University (1972-1975), University of Illinois (1975-1984), and was Harold H. Bailey Professor of Biology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1988-1991. He was Deputy Director (1984-1987) and Acting Director (1987-1988) of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama and Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (1991-1995) at the University of Washington. Karr's research includes studies of tropical forest ecology, ornithology, stream ecology, watershed management, landscape ecology, conservation biology, ecological health, ecological risk, and environmental policy. Support for his research has come from the following agencies and organizations: US Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, National Science Foundation, Tennessee Valley Authority, US Geological Survey, US Department of Energy, National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Institution, Earthwatch, and the American Philosophical Society. His goal is to expand knowledge to protect the biological integrity of Earth's life-support systems. He developed the index of biotic integrity (IBI) as a biologically based approach to evaluate the quality of water resources. Originally developed for use with fish communities in the Midwest, IBI is now used on all continents but Antarctica, has been modified for use with benthic invertebrates, and is used by a number of state and federal agencies to guide water resource policies. He is currently working to adapt the IBI concept for assessment of terrestrial environments with a grant from the Department of Energy.

Karr was elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1981) and the American Ornithologists' Union (1979), and is listed in current versions of Who's Who in America; Science and Engineering; American Education; and the West. He has served on committees for or as a consultant to South Florida Water Management District, Organization for American States, Canadian Pulp and Paper Industry Association, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, US Department of Energy, US Agency for International Development, and the National Science Foundation. He served as editor or editorial board member for a number of journals: Ecology, Tropical Ecology, Ecological Monographs, BioScience; Conservation Biology, Ecological Applications, Freshwater Biology; Ecosystem Health. Karr has published more than 200 papers, monographs, book chapters, essays, and book reviews. In recent years, he has written a number of op-ed columns on environmental topics for regional and national newspapers and other publications. His current primary concern is to improve the use of ecological information in the decision making process of society. Protection of the well-being of human society requires more sophisticated use of ecological, especially biological, knowledge. A book coauthored with Ellen Chu titled Restoring Life in Running Waters: Better Biological Monitoring was published by Island Press in 1999.