Dean UrbanWelcome to my website. 

I am a landscape ecologist. I am interested in how ecology plays out over large areas.

I have been a professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University since 1994; I retired in 2023 and now enjoy emeritus status.

My research interests have focused largely on forest ecosystems: forests and climate, forests and fire, forest habitats and the wildlife that lives in them (especially birds), and forests in urban systems.