Viorel Popescu is a Lecturer and Director of the MS Program in Biodiversity Data Analytics with the School of Professional Studies and the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology (The BEAST Lab). The research in his group is driven by the need for rapid and effective strategies to reverse current rates of biodiversity loss and relies on advanced statistical methods to measure biodiversity and trends in terrestrial and freshwater species. He works with management agencies, NGOs, industry, governments and other sectors to provide applied solutions to real-world issues, such as overexploitation of wildlife species, tradeoffs between renewable energy and biodiversity, or endangered species recovery across many jurisdictions (US, Canada, Eastern Europe, China, Peru). Current projects include large mammal ecology in Romania, eastern hellbender conservation in Pennsylvania and biodiversity monitoring in the Peruvian Amazon and western China.
