2025 AOS Harry R. Painton award to Eric Wood

Eric Wood The AOS Harry R. Painton Award is given in odd-numbered years and is presented to the author of an outstanding paper published in the two preceding years in Ornithological Applications. The 2025 Harry R. Painton Award is presented to Eric Wood, lead author of the paper, “Historical racial redlining and contemporary patterns of income inequality negatively affect birds, their habitat, and people in Los Angeles, California (Wood et al. 2023).” Dr Eric Wood is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at California State University, Los Angeles, and a co-director of the Los Angeles Urban Ecology Center. He holds a PhD in Forest and Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, an MS in wildlife ecology and a professional certificate in remote sensing and GIS from Humboldt State University (Cal Poly Humboldt), and a BS in biological sciences from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Wood’s research focuses on avian and urban ecology, conservation biology, and landscape-scale responses of bird communities to climate and land-use change. His work has been published in top journals including Science, Nature Communications, and Ecological Applications, and has received more than 2,700 citations. His lab integrates field ecology with spatial analysis and community science to advance solutions-oriented research in biodiversity conservation. Wood is a research associate with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and serves on the editorial board of Proceedings of the Royal Society B. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, USDA, and numerous conservation agencies. Among his honors are the Aldo Leopold Outstanding Wildlife Graduate Student Award and multiple recognitions for mentoring students in ornithology and conservation. Wood loves trail running, swimming, birding, and telling bedtime stories featuring any truck to his 3- and 5-year-old sons and watching migrating warblers eat!