Brad Shaffer

Brad Shaffer is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and faculty director for the UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science. Shaffer is an expert is in biodiversity, evolutionary biology, ecology and conservation biology of amphibians and reptiles.

Shaffer’s research projects include comparative phylogeography of amphibians and reptiles in California and the central U.S., freshwater turtles around the globe, and conservation genetics of endangered California amphibians and reptiles. Recently, Shaffer, who is a member of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, has focused a great deal of ecological and genetic work on the California tiger salamander, an endangered species native to central California grassland.

In fall 2014, Shaffer and his colleagues published a paper about their discovery of a new species of frog in New York City.