Rate My Professor Casey Youngflesh

Casey Youngflesh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Clemson University, where he joined in 2024. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from Stony Brook University (2018), a Master of Conservation Biology (with distinction) from the University of New South Wales (2011), and a B.S. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2007). His career includes a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at Michigan State University (2022–2023), postdoctoral research positions at the University of California, Los Angeles (2020–2022) and the University of Connecticut (2019), and a NASA Graduate Fellowship at Stony Brook University (2016–2018).

The Youngflesh Lab operates at the intersection of ecology and data science, combining ecological theory with quantitative tools like hierarchical Bayesian models and deep learning to study drivers of biodiversity and population dynamics across scales through the lens of global change. The lab identifies vulnerable species and systems using big data from community science projects, satellites, remote camera networks, and field efforts, primarily focusing on birds and marine mammals. Key publications include 'Demographic consequences of phenological asynchrony for North American songbirds' (PNAS, 2023), 'Abiotic conditions shape spatial and temporal morphological variation in North American birds' (Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2022), 'Migratory strategy drives species-level variation in bird sensitivity to green-up' (Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2021), and recent works such as 'Environmental variability shapes life history of the world’s birds' (Ecology Letters, 2025) and 'Potential for bird–insect phenological mismatch in a tri-trophic system' (Journal of Animal Ecology, 2025). Youngflesh has received the Elective Member designation from the American Ornithological Society (2024), College of Life Sciences Excellence in Research Award from UCLA (2022), Robert R. Sokal Award for Statistical Biology (2017), Alexander Goetz Award (2015), and Excellence in Research Award from Stony Brook University (2014). He has delivered invited lectures at institutions including Ohio State University, University of South Carolina, and Environment and Climate Change Canada, and developed the R package MCMCvis, with over 125,000 downloads.