Frank Gill (ornithologist)
Frank Gill | |
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Born | Frank Bennington Gill October 2, 1941 New York City, New York, United States |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Ornithologist |
Frank Bennington Gill (October 2, 1941 in New York City) is an American ornithologist with worldwide research interests and birding experience. He is perhaps best known as the author of the textbook Ornithology (4th edition, 2019),[1] the leading textbook in the field.
Gill was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey.[2] He reported that he became interested in birds at the age of seven, when his grandfather, Frank Rockingham Downing, showed him a song sparrow at a birdbath. This was the first time he had seen a bird through binoculars, "and I was hooked."[3]
After Gill received his
More recently, Gill was the president of the
Gill's contributions include innovative program leadership combined with a personal commitment to engaging the public in ornithology through citizen science. He pioneered “cyberbirding”—the use of the internet for nationwide citizen science initiatives—including the conversion of classic Christmas Bird Count to modern technology. Frank and his colleagues at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology also were awarded US Patent No. 6,772,142 for their internet software application to translate online georeference data to an interactive database. With such tools, he and his colleagues created the Great Backyard Bird Count and then the eBird initiative of Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
In 1996, Gill became senior vice president and director of science for the
Literature
- William Edwin Davis, Jerome A. Jackson: Contributions to the History of North American Ornithology, Nuttall Ornithological Club, 1995. p. 21, ISBN 978-1-877973-36-9
References
- ISBN 978-0-7167-4983-7.
- ^ Dr. Frank Gill Archived 2019-05-17 at the Wayback Machine, Delaware Valley Ornithological Club. Accessed August 22, 2007. "I was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey and moved to the Philadelphia area when I began to work at the Academy of Natural Sciences [of Philadelphia] (ANSP)."
- ^ "DVOC - Frank Gill". 17 May 2019. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ The Auk, January 1999
- ISBN 978-0-691-12827-6.
- ^ "IOC World Bird List – Version 12.1". Worldbirdnames.org. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ Sightings spur rush to aid ‘extinct’ woodpecker, NBC News, April 28, 2005. Accessed December 28, 2007.