Rate My Professor Andrew Sih

Andrew Sih is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis. He earned his B.S. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1980. His doctoral research examined predator-prey lifestyles. Subsequently, he held postdoctoral fellowships at Ohio State University (1980-1981), Michigan State University (1981-1982), and a short-term position at the University of California, Berkeley in 1982. He began his academic career as Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky in 1982, promoted to Associate Professor in 1987 and Professor in 1991. During his tenure at Kentucky, he directed the Center for Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from 1998 to 2001 and was the Marshall Hahn Sr. Endowed Professor of Biology from 1999 to 2001. In 2001, Sih joined UC Davis as Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, serving as Chair until 2006, and was elevated to Distinguished Professor in 2011.

Sih uses an evolutionary approach to investigate behaviors that exert strong influences on ecological patterns at population and community levels. Key areas include predator-prey interactions, mating behaviors, social behaviors, and life history traits. Current research in his laboratory addresses behavioral syndromes, phenotypic plasticity in behavior, responses to human-induced rapid environmental change, antipredator behavior in human-modified environments, invasion biology, and spatiotemporal predator-prey dynamics. He has authored or co-authored seminal papers such as "Optimal Behavior: Can Foragers Balance Two Conflicting Demands?" (Science, 1980), "Predators and prey lifestyles: an evolutionary and ecological overview" (1987), "Behavioral syndromes: an ecological and evolutionary overview" (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2004), "Effects of early stress on behavioral syndromes: an integrated adaptive perspective" (Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 2011), and "Evolution and behavioural responses to human-induced rapid environmental change" (Evolutionary Applications, 2011). Sih's honors include the Murray F. Buell Award from the Ecological Society of America (1980), University Research Professorship at Kentucky (1996-1997), presidency of the Animal Behavior Society (1997-2001), Fellowship of the Animal Behavior Society (2007), Quest Award from the Animal Behavior Society (2011), and the Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Award (2023). He is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in Ecology and Environmental Sciences by Clarivate Analytics. Through conceptually driven reviews, theory development, and empirical studies, Sih has bridged behavioral ecology with broader ecological subfields, yielding fundamental insights and implications for conservation.