Dr. Bruce Beehler works for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History as an ornithologist and research associate. An authority on New Guinea birds and the author of several major works on the subject, he previously worked for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Counterpart International.

Bruce received his master’s and Ph.D. studying behavioral ecology at Princeton. He also co-led a broadly published rapid assessment survey on biological diversity in the Foja Mountains of Papua in 2005 alongside a team of international scientists—during which the Wattled Smoky Honeyeater was discovered and the Bronze Parotia and Golden-fronted Bowerbird were photographed for the first time.