Rate My Professor Bradley Cardinale

Bradley J. Cardinale is Head of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management and Professor at Penn State University. He earned a B.S. in Biology from Arizona State University in 1993, an M.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University in 1996, and a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Maryland in 2002. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2002 to 2005, he served as assistant professor and later associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2005 to 2011. Cardinale then joined the University of Michigan in 2011, advancing to full professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, while directing the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research from 2016 to 2021. He assumed his current leadership role at Penn State in January 2021, overseeing research, teaching, and extension activities in ecosystem science.

A leading figure in conservation biology, Cardinale's research investigates the conservation and restoration of biodiversity in natural systems and the ecological design of human-engineered ecosystems, with a focus on how biodiversity influences the functioning and services of freshwater habitats such as streams, lakes, and wetlands, as well as grasslands, forests, and kelp beds. He has authored over 130 peer-reviewed papers, including landmark publications like "Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity" (Nature, 2012), "A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change" (Nature, 2012), "Effects of biodiversity on the functioning of trophic groups and ecosystems" (Nature, 2006), and "Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity" (PNAS, 2007). His work has secured more than $39 million in research funding and recently culminated in co-authoring the textbook Conservation Biology (Oxford University Press, 2025). Cardinale is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America, has been named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in Environment/Ecology annually since 2014, and was recognized as one of Thomson Reuters' World's Most Influential Scientific Minds in 2014.