Richard Preziosi is Professor of Ecological Genetics and Head of School of Biological and Marine Sciences at the University of Plymouth. He joined the University in 2021 from Manchester Metropolitan University, which he joined in October 2016 as Director of the Ecology and Environment Research Centre. Prior to this, he was Professor of Ecological Genetics in the Faculty of Life Sciences, the University of Manchester. He obtained his MSc from Concordia University in Montreal in 1990, and his PhD from McGill University in Montreal in 1997. From 1997 to 1999 he was an NSF (USA) Post Doctoral Scholar and an NSERC (Canada) Research Fellow in the Department of Entomology at the University of Kentucky. In 1999 he became a lecturer at the University of Manchester where he became a professor in 2012. In 2004/5 he was a Visiting Professor at Grinnel College (USA). He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Society of Biology, and a Certified Senior Ecologist (ESA). At the University of Manchester he was founding director of the Environment and Ecology Research Theme and of the Centre for the Genetics of Ecosystem Services. From 2014 to 2016 he was Section Head for the Faculty of Life Sciences. He has acted as faculty lead for sustainability (2008 to 2014) and Member and Chair of the University research ethics committees for both human and animal research (2005 to 2015). He currently acts as an external advisor on the ethics committee of Chester Zoo, is a Trustee of Paignton Zoo and is a consultant to the University of Liverpool and UCLAN.
Professor Preziosi’s research focusses on conservation and genetics. His genetic research examines the genetics of species interactions, especially where one species is dominant in an ecosystem, and on in situ and ex situ conservation genetics of both commercially harvested species like lobster and of endangered species such as mountain bongo. His conservation research is largely aimed at improving the ex situ conservation of species. While he works on a wide variety of taxa he has been working on amphibian conservation since 2003. He is especially interested in optimising husbandry for endangered amphibian species using an evidence based approach.