Professional Affiliation

Professor, George Washington University

Expert Bio

Colin Chapman received his joint Ph.D. in the Departments of Anthropology and Zoology at the University of Alberta. He spent 2 years at McGill and 3 years at Harvard University doing post-doctoral research. Since 1990 he has served as an Honourary lecturer at Makerere University, Uganda and since 1995 he has been a Conservation Fellow with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Colin was faculty at the University of Florida for 11 years and returned to McGill in 2004 where he held a Canada Research Chair, before coming to George Washington University. He is a Wilson Center Fellow, Humboldt Fellow, Killam Research Fellow, Velan Foundation Awardee for Humanitarian Service, and is a fellow of the Royal Society. For 30+ years, he has worked in Kibale National Park, Uganda both conducting research and devoting great effort to help the rural communities, establishing schools, clinics, and ecotourism projects.

Expertise

• Environment
• Africa
• Uganda

Wilson Center Project

The Science-Policy-Action Interplay: What is the Role of Communication in Action?

Project Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic made it woefully clear how ineffective society is at incorporating scientific knowledge into policy and creating action. During his time at the Wilson Center, Professor Colin Chapman will investigate knowledge to action pathways and research the role of communication strategies in the science-policy-action interplay. He will focus on four urgent global issues, biodiversity loss, climate change, zoonotic diseases, and microplastics, with the aim of discovering how to improve communication and promote action. As consequences of these environmental challenges becoming more severe, the importance of researching how engagement among scientists, policy makers, and the public can drive positive change has become an imperative.

Major Publications

• Chapman, Colin A. and Carlos A. Peres. Primate conservation: lessons learned in the last 20 years can guide future efforts. Evolutionary Anthropology In press.
• Chapman, Colin A., Júlio César Bicca-Marques, Amy E. Dunham, Pengfei Fan, Peter J. Fashing, Jan Gogarten, Songtao Guo, Michael A. Huffman, Urs Kalbitzer, Changyong Ma, Ikki Matsuda, Patrick A. Omeja, Raja Sengupta, Juan Carlos Serio-Silva, Yamato Tsuji, and Nils Chr. Stenseth. 2020. Primates can be a rallying species to promote tropical forest restoration. Folia Primatologica 91:669-687.
• Chapman, C.A., Rong Hou, and Urs Kalbitzer. 2018. What will climate change mean for primates? In: Primatology, Bio-cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development in Tropical Forests. A Global Perspective, UNESCO, Mexico City.