Background
DEAN, PAUL was born on May 29, 1953 in Washington, District of Columbia.
DEAN, PAUL was born on May 29, 1953 in Washington, District of Columbia.
He has studied plant population ecology and community ecology in wetlands and many other habitats in eastern Canada and Louisiana, United States. He began his formal training in biology in 1969 at York University in Toronto and finished his PhD at Dalhousie University with Evelyn C. Pielou.
He has been professor of biology for 30 years, first at the University of Guelph (1978–1982), then the University of Ottawa (1982–1999) and then held the Edward G. Schlieder Endowed Chair for Environmental Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University (1999 to 2007). He has published over 150 scholarly articles, written seven books, and edited two books. He has been designated a Highly Cited Researcher by the Institute for Scientific Information.
Although he has worked on many types of plant communities and a broad array of ecological questions, the focus of his work has been upon the principles that organize plant communities, with particular emphasis upon wetlands.