Rick Relyea is the David M. Darrin ’40 Senior Endowed Chair in the Department of Biological Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he served as the Director of the Darrin Fresh Water Institute (2014-2022).
Professor Relyea teaches courses in ecology, evolution, and animal behavior at the undergraduate and graduate level. He received a B.S. in Environmental Forest Biology from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, a M.S. in Wildlife Management from Texas Tech University, and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Michigan.
For three decades, Professor Relyea has conducted research on a wide range of topics including community ecology, evolution, disease ecology, and ecotoxicology. He has served on multiple scientific panels for the National Science Foundation and served as an Associate Editor for the journals of the Ecological Society of America. He has authored more than 200 scientific articles and book chapters, and has presented research seminars throughout the world. In 2005, he was named the Chancellor's Distinguished Researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and in 2014 he received the Tina & David Bellet Teaching Excellence Award.
Professor Relyea also has a strong interest in high school education. Besides helping teachers perform research in his laboratory, he conducts summer workshops for high school teachers in the fields of ecology and evolution. He also works to bring cutting-edge research experiments into high school classrooms.
