Draft:David Skelly

David Skelly
David K. Skelly is an American ecologist, professor, curator and university administrator currently serving as the Director of the Yale Peabody Museum and the Frank R. Oastler Professor of Ecology at the Yale School of the Environment.

Early life and education

Skelly grew up in Wilton, Connecticut. He attended Middlebury College graduating cum laude in 1987 and earning Honors in Biology. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Michigan in 1992 where he studied with Prof. Earl Werner. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia and at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Career

In 1996, Skelly was appointed Assistant Professor of Ecology at the Yale School of the Environment. He secured tenure and was promoted to full professor in 2003. In 2009, he was appointed Associate Dean in the School of the Environment, a post he held until 2014. That year he became Director of the Yale Peabody Museum. His research has focused on ecology and conservation including the role of contaminants in the environment. He collaborated with landscape designer Diana Balmori on the design of a wildlife crossing and researched the role of changing climate and landscapes on the fate of wildlife populations.

Skelly’s tenure as Director of the Peabody has focused on the renovation and expansion of the Museum. After securing a $160 million gift in 2018 from philanthropist Edward P. Bass, Skelly led the Museum through a planning process for a capital project designed by Centerbrook Architects and managed by Turner Construction. The museum closed in March, 2020 and re-opened in March, 2024 with free admission, 50% more gallery space and undergraduate classrooms embedded on each floor of the Museum.

Selected Publications
Lambert, M. R., G. S. J. Giller, L. B. Barber, K. C. Fitzgerald, and D. K. Skelly. 2015. Suburbanization, estrogen contamination, and sex ratio in wild amphibian populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112:11881–11886.

Richardson, J.L., M.C. Urban, D. Bolnick, and D.K. Skelly. 2014. Microgeographic adaptation and the spatial scale of evolution. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 29:165-176.

Skelly, D. K. 2004. Microgeographic countergradient variation in the wood frog, Rana sylvatica. Evolution 58: 160-165.

Skelly, D. K., L. K. Freidenburg, and S. R. Bolden. 2014. Experimental canopy removal enhances diversity of vernal pond amphibians. Ecological Applications 24:340-345. 

Skelly, D. K., D. M. Post, and M. D. Smith (editors). 2010. The art of ecology: writings of G. Evelyn Hutchinson. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

Zarnetske, P. L., D. K. Skelly, M. C. Urban. 2012. Biotic multipliers of climate change. Science 336:1516-1518.