My primary interest is conservation science – I have studied and worked in terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems in Australia, Kenya, and USA. My current research focuses on animal movement and conservation biology in the Pacific Ocean.

The migratory behavior of many wide-ranging marine animals is in many ways, still a mystery. Recent advances in electronic tagging technology, allow for the visualization of relatively fine-scale movements by animals such as elephant seals, albatross, and whales. I will utilize movement data collected as a part of the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics project to better understand how wide-ranging animals utilize their environment, how their migratory pathways overlap with each other and with humans, and to determine if particular areas of the Pacific Ocean seem to be multi-species aggregation points or biodiversity “hotspots.” My aim is to answer questions that are of ecological interest, but also of particular use for conservation planning and management.

My Ph.D. research combines my interests and experience in conservation biology, wildlife science, and aquatic ecology. I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, USA – a place of beautiful salt marshes and still Chesapeake Bay waters. Estuarine and freshwater ecology dominated my early interests. As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, I focused on terrestrial wildlife science and aquatic environmental science and spent a semester in Kenya studying wildlife management and conservation. It was in Kenya that I first became interested in the intersection of animal movement, conservation, and social science. I later researched tropical marine ecology and fisheries science as a postgraduate in Townsville, Australia, and spent the last four years working for the Society for Conservation Biology.

Harrison, A-L and K. J. Bjorndal. 2006. Connectivity and wide-ranging species in the ocean. In: Connectivity Conservation (K.R. Crooks and M. Sanjayan, editors). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

Harrison, A-L. 2006. Who's who in Conservation Biology - An authorship analysis. Conservation Biology. 20(3):652-657.

Berkson, JB and A-L Harrison. 2002. Refocusing natural resource management: A multidisciplinary road to reality. Journal of College Science Teaching. XXXI(7):464-469

Berkson, JB and A-L Harrison. 2001. An integrative capstone class for the conservation biology curriculum. Conservation Biology. 15(5):1461-1463

Harrison, A-L, RB Reneau, and C Hagedorn. 1999. Wastewater renovation with mine-derived fill materials. In: Environmental impacts of mining activities (JM Azcue, editor). Springer-Verlag: NY. pp. 163-178.