Tom Van Devender

Thomas R. Van Devender was the Senior Research Scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for 25 years, where he conducted research on a broad range of natural history topics. He has published well over a hundred publications on a range of topics, including natural history, paleoecology, desert grasslands, desert tortoise ecology, local floras, ethnobotany, herpetofaunas and the Madrean Archipelago. Tom is interested in the natural history of many areas in Sonora, especially the Madrean the Sky Island mountain ranges, the la Frontera zone within 100 km of the Arizona border, the Yécora area in the Sierra Madre Occidental, and tropical deciduous forest in the Álamos area.

In May 2015, Tom began as the Director of Biodiversity Programs at Greater Good Charities, where he organizes biodiversity inventories to Sonoran Sky Islands in the Madrean Discovery Expeditions (MDE) program and manages a Predator Conservation Program. From 2009 to 2014, Tom was the Manager of the Madrean Archipelago Biodiversity Assessment (MABA) project at Sky Island Alliance. MABA documented the diversity of animals and plants in the 35 isolated Sky Island ranges and complexes in Sonora, Mexico. These biological records and high-resolution images are available to support conservation activities in the region. Tom has organized ten binational expeditions with large volunteer groups of taxonomic specialists, land managers, college professors and students, local residents, photographers, and journalists to make new observations in high-diversity areas in Sky Island ranges in Sonora.