Kevin McGowan, Ph.D., associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and co-editor of the second New York State Breeding Bird Atlas, President and webmaster for the New York State Ornithological Association, and a member of the New York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC). McGowan is an authority on the crow family, and has done extensive research in social development, family structure, and West Nile virus transmission within avian populations, especially the American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).
Dr. McGowan’s main research concerns reproductive and social behavior of American Crows, as well as Fish Crows (Corvus ossifragus) in the Ithaca area.
Dr. McGowan received a B.S. in Zoology from the Ohio State University in 1977, and an M.S. in Zoology from Ohio State in 1980 for a thesis on small mammals and their use of arthropods on reclaimed strip-mines. He then went to the University of South Florida where he received a Ph.D. in Biology in 1987 for work on the social development of young Florida Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens).