Frank Gallagher, Ph.D.

For over thirty years Frank has explored the connection between people and landscape through both management and academic research. He has served as Chief of Interpretive Services, Administrator and Assistant Director of the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry. After teaching courses in biology, evolution and environmental science for ten years at Upsala College, Frank joined the faculty at Rutgers The State University part time in 1994, and full time in 2012. His current appointment as Assistant Professor of Practice and the Director of the Environmental Planning and Design program within the Department of Landscape Architecture consists of working with academic administrators, academic advising, administrative staff and faculty to ensure the continued development and delivery of a cutting edge program. It also allows for teaching, research collaboration and mentoring of graduate students. He serves on the graduate faculty for the Department of Landscape Architecture, Department of Ecology Evolution and Natural Resources and the Federated Department of Biological Sciences at Rutgers Newark and is also a Research Associate at Montclair State University.

Frank’s current research interest in urban ecological restoration has focused on the sublethal impact of soil metal contamination at both the species and assemblage level. Over the past several years he has examined metal translocation pathways and its impact on species distribution, productivity, reproductive success and guild trajectories.
Frank has published extensively in both scientific journals and venues of general interests’ on topics ranging form phytostabilization of contaminated soils to the ethics of ecosystem function monetization. He has presented hundreds of lectures at conferences and meetings both nationally and internationally. Topics have generally included current natural resource based environmental issues, demographic transition and most recently brownfield redevelopment. In 2001 he was invited by Princess Abdulla of Jordan to lecture on forest development in Amman, Jordan.