Field InstructorH. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D.

A native Virginian, Dr. Rinker is an ecologist, educator, and explorer who lives and works in west-central Florida outside Tampa.

Dr. Rinker is the Environmental Lands Division Director for Pinellas County, supervising a staff of 50 personnel and 400 volunteers engaged in the development and implementation of long-term land management plans for 15,500 acres of county-owned environmentally sensitive properties. He received his doctorate in environmental studies from Antioch New England Graduate School (Keene, NH) in May 2004. He was elected a National Fellow of the Explorers Club in March 1998, a Switzer Environmental Fellow in May 2000, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences in 2002, and a Full Member of Sigmi Xi, the prestigious scientific society, in 2005.

Dr. Rinker’s dissertation research focused on the effects of canopy herbivory on soil decomposition in the tropical forests of Puerto Rico, linking the green and brown food webs. His work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s 2000 Switzer Environmental Fellowship, the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, and several private grants.

Dr. Rinker is an Associate of the Center for Tropical Ecology and Conservation (Keene, NH), a Research Associate for TREE Foundation and New College of Florida (both in Sarasota, FL), and an adjunct faculty member at Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, FL). Dr. Rinker is a member of the research board of directors for the Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies (ACTS) in Peru and sits on the editorial boards for Selbyana and ActionBioscience, the latter an on-line journal. He has written many scientific and popular publications including Forest Canopies (2nd edition), co-edited with Dr. Margaret D. Lowman and published by Elsevier/Academic Press in August 2004. His scientific expeditions include various trips to the Galápagos Islands; into the High Andes of Ecuador and Peru; the Amazon Basin of Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru; the rainforests of Australia, Costa Rica, the Congo Basin of Cameroon, Cuba, French Guiana, and Puerto Rico; the deserts and reefs of the Middle East; and other places. He has participated twice on the French-sponsored international Radeau des Cimes mission with its colorful dirigible, treetops raft, and canopy sled.

Dr. Rinker has received numerous science education awards including “Outstanding Science Teacher” (1991, Science Teachers Association of New York State), “Outstanding Biology Teacher” (1997, National Association of Biology Teachers), and the “Environmental Education Award” from the County of Sarasota, FL in 2004. He has been featured recently in numerous publications and shows including The High Frontier: Exploring the Tropical Rainforest Canopy (Mark W. Moffett, Harvard University Press, 1993), Science News (December 1994), AMC Outdoors (May 1998), National Geographic World (September 1986 and March 1999), PBS’s “Live from the Rainforest” (April 1998), the Jason X Project (“Rainforests: A Wet and Wild Adventure,”? Spring 1999, focus and consultant), Life in the Treetops (Margaret D. Lowman, Yale University Press, 1999), The Sciences (March/April 2000), New York Times/National Geographic Television (Summer 2001); National Geographic News (Fall 2003); WEDU’s “Gulf Coast Journal” from Tampa, FL (Spring 2004); a science-adventure documentary on forest canopy ecology for JULES Unlimited, Holland (Spring 2004); and various shows for Pinellas County’s “Postcards from Home” series in 2006 and 2007.