Rate My Professor Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is a Professor of Coastal Wetland Ecology in Auburn University’s College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment. He earned a B.S. in Forestry and Wildlife from Virginia Tech in 1993, an M.S. in Botany from the University of South Florida in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from Ohio State University in 2005. Prior to his faculty appointment at Auburn, where he has served for over 15 years, Anderson worked more than eight years as an environmental consultant in Florida. There, he designed wetland creation and restoration projects, conducted wetland delineations, surveyed for listed species, and collaborated with engineers and clients on regulatory permitting. His Ph.D. advisor, William Mitsch, trained him as a systems ecologist, emphasizing holistic ecosystem interactions, which shapes his research and teaching.

Anderson’s research focuses on wetland and floodplain ecology, urban ecology, land use effects on wetland and stream functions, and coastal wetland management. An expert in wetland riparian environments, he studies coastal wetlands, land use impacts, and functional responses to human disturbance, primarily along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast in west Florida and Alabama. He leads interdisciplinary teams of biologists, hydrologists, and social scientists to tackle complex issues like watershed land use changes affecting estuaries, fisheries, water quality, and flood storage. Ongoing projects examine tidal freshwater forested wetlands in the lower Apalachicola River and the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, threatened by climate change and sea-level rise. He serves as Associate Director of the Center for Environmental Studies at the Urban-Rural Interface and directs the Wetland and Riparian Ecology Lab. Anderson teaches Wetland Ecology and Management, Watershed Management, and Urban Ecology. His key publications include “Wetlands, carbon, and climate change” (Landscape Ecology, 2013), “Wetland ecosystems” (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), “Creating riverine wetlands: ecological succession, nutrient retention, and pulsing effects” (Ecological Engineering, 2005), and “Creating wetlands: primary succession, water quality changes, and self-design over 15 years” (BioScience, 2012), contributing substantially to the field through thousands of citations and informing coastal management practices.