About

Dr. Christopher J. Schell is an urban ecologist, professor, Afrofuturist, father, and writer. Since 2021, he has served on the faculty in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) at the University of California, Berkeley. His research sits at the intersection of animal behavior, physiology, urban biodiversity conservation, environmental justice, and One Health, focusing on how carnivores such as coyotes, foxes, and raccoons adapt to urban environments. Schell’s lab integrates behavioral, physiological, and genomic approaches to understand the consequences of historical and contemporary inequities on wildlife and urban ecosystems, emphasizing the role of systemic racism and oppression in shaping urban landscapes and human-wildlife interactions. His work also involves community-engaged research to co-produce justice- and equity-centered programs that regenerate urban nature, improve environmental health, and promote access for all peoples. Recognized as a National Geographic Explorer, Grist Fixer, Cal Academy Fellow and Board Member, and Affiliate Faculty with the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Schell’s research has been featured in prominent media outlets including The Atlantic, The New York Times, Vox Explained, and NPR. His academic background includes a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Psychology from Columbia University.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Geography
• Sociology
• Environmental resource management
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Environmental planning
• Demography
• Economics
• Evolutionary biology
• Environmental science
• Economic geography

Selected publications

• Sociodemographic and regional differences in human–coyote interactions and human attitudes towards coyotes

  People and Nature · 2026-03-19

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Attitudes and emotions shape how humans perceive and behave towards wildlife, making them a key component affecting human–wildlife coexistence. In addition to direct experience with wildlife, research shows that sociodemographic characteristics and locality can influence a person's relationship with wildlife through cultural norms, economic factors and general experiences with nature. We focussed on the interaction between humans and coyotes, a widespread North American urban mammal that has had a particularly divisive history of interactions with humans. We used data from an online survey distributed to residents of Cook County (CC), Illinois and Los Angeles County (LAC), California, to evaluate the relationship between county of residence, sociodemographics, outdoor activity participation, direct experience with coyotes and attitudes and fear towards coyotes. Our results indicated that respondents who identified as female, respondents with low incomes, respondents who identify as Asian, Pacific Islander, or Black, and respondents from CC tended to have less positive attitudes and greater fear towards coyotes than male respondents, respondents with high incomes, White respondents, and respondents from LAC. Some groups' perceptions of coyotes were partly explained by their lower participation in outdoor activities (i.e. respondents with low incomes, Asian and Pacific Islander respondents, respondents from CC) and/or their less frequent sightings of coyotes (i.e. female respondents, low‐income respondents, Asian and Pacific Islander respondents). Our study suggests that in addition to direct experiences, or in their absence, societal structures based on class, race and gender influence how people interact with and perceive wildlife. This adds to a growing literature underscoring the significance of understanding how systems of oppression shape human–wildlife interactions and experiences, emphasizing the need to incorporate an environmental justice lens to human‐wildlife coexistence. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

  PublisherDOI

• Data from: Urban coyote spatiotemporal overlap with humans is associated with environmental characteristics not human sociodemographics

  DRYAD · 2026-02-17

  datasetOpen access

  This data was used to analyze the relationship between environmental and societal characteristics and overlap with humans in coyotes (Canis latrans). The dataset includes environmental characteristics (proportion open space, proportion impervious cover) and societal characteristics (human population density, median income, proportion of White residents) in the vicinity of high-resolution GPS data collected from coyotes in the Chicago metropolitan area. These characteristics were summarized at three scales surrounding each GPS location: 30 m ("data_30_df_6-5-25.rdata"), 100 m ("data_100_df_6-5-25.rdata"), and 500 m ("data_500_df_6-5-25.rdata"). We estimated overlap by quantifying coyotes’ spatial selection for human population density during periods of temporal overlap, i.e., periods when coyotes and humans were active, using step-selection analysis.

  PublisherDOI

• Legacy effects of redlining on the distribution of greenspaces in US cities

  DRYAD · 2026-03-03

  datasetOpen access

  We investigated how a discriminatory housing policy – redlining – has shaped the spatial patterns and configurations of greenspaces throughout 177 U.S. cities. Housing segregation has been a long-term development practice that has sequestered communities of color to areas with heightened environmental and public health risks. While the lasting environmental, social, and economic impacts of redlining are clear, the impact of redlining on landscapes are still unfolding. We found that neighborhoods that were historically redlined have less greenspace and that individual greenspaces were smaller and less connected. We also found that residents living in these neighborhoods with less greenspace were predominantly communities of color and/or had lower income. Thus, the legacy of redlining can be seen in the modern spatial patterns of urban greenspaces, and ecosystem services provided by greenspaces have been systematically absent from redlined communities for decades.

  PublisherDOI

• Data from: Sociodemographic and regional differences in human-coyote interactions and human attitudes towards coyotes

  DRYAD · 2026-02-17

  datasetOpen access

  Attitudes and emotions shape how humans perceive and behave toward wildlife making them a key component affecting human-wildlife coexistence. In addition to direct experience with wildlife, research shows that sociodemographic characteristics and locality can influence a person’s relationship with wildlife through cultural norms, economic factors, and general experiences with nature. We focused on the interaction between humans and coyotes, a widespread North American urban mammal that has had a particularly divisive history of interactions with humans. We used data from an online survey distributed to residents of Cook County, Illinois and Los Angeles County, California to evaluate the relationship between county of residence, sociodemographics, outdoor activity participation, direct experience with coyotes, and attitudes and fear toward coyotes. Our results indicated that respondents who identified as female, respondents with low incomes, respondents who identify as Asian, Pacific Islander, or Black, and respondents from Cook County tended to have less positive attitudes and greater fear toward coyotes than male respondents, respondents with high incomes, White respondents, and respondents from Los Angeles County. Some groups’ perception of coyotes was partly explained by their lower participation in outdoor activities (i.e., respondents with low incomes, Asian and Pacific Islander respondents, respondents from Cook County) and/or their less frequent sightings of coyotes (i.e., female respondents, low-income respondents, Asian and Pacific Islander respondents). Our study suggests that in addition to direct experiences, or in their absence, societal structures based on class, race, and gender influence how people interact with and perceive wildlife. This adds to a growing literature underscoring the significance of understanding how systems of oppression shape human-wildlife interactions and experiences, emphasizing the need to incorporate an environmental justice lens to human-wildlife coexistence.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Environmental Health and Societal Wealth Predict Movement Patterns of an Urban Carnivore"

  2025-01-04

  peer-reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Environmental contamination predicts mammal diversity and mesocarnivore activity in the Seattle- Tacoma metro area

  Research Square · 2025-04-14

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Environmental Health and Societal Wealth Predict Movement Patterns of an Urban Carnivore

  Ecology Letters · 2025-02-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  How societal, ecological and infrastructural attributes interact to influence wildlife movement is uncertain. We explored whether neighbourhood socioeconomic status and environmental quality were associated with coyote (Canis latrans) movement patterns in Los Angeles, California and assessed the performance of integrated social-ecological movement models. We found that coyotes living in more anthropogenically burdened regions (i.e. higher pollution, denser development, etc.) had larger home ranges and showed greater daily displacement and mean step length than coyotes in less burdened regions. Coyotes experiencing differing levels of anthropogenic burdens demonstrated divergent selection for vegetation, pollution, road densities and other habitat conditions. Further, movement models that included societal covariates performed better than models that only assessed ecological features and linear infrastructure. This study provides a unique social-ecological lens examining the anthropogenic drivers of urban wildlife movement, which should be applicable to urban planners and conservationists when building more equitable, healthy and wildlife-friendly cities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Large-scale experimental assessment of coyote behavior across urban and rural landscapes

  Scientific Reports · 2025-12-17

  articleOpen access

  Carnivores must navigate the complexities of human modifications to their environment. Natural resources and biodiversity decline in urban areas, while people in rural areas often pose greater direct risk through actions such as hunting. To evaluate if carnivore populations adapt their behavior to local risks in rural and urban environments, we compared behavioral responses to novel objects in coyotes (Canis latrans). We placed an attractant at arrays of 30 camera-trap stations at 16 pairs of urban and rural field sites across the USA, with a novel object placed at half of the stations. Coyotes exhibited more cautious behavior and remained farther from the attractant at all sites with the novel object; however, urban coyotes got closer to the attractant than rural coyotes. There were few behavioral differences between urban and rural coyotes and none between eastern and western coyotes. Coyotes across the USA exhibit neophobic behavior but urban coyotes, especially western coyotes, are willing to take more risk (i.e., be closer to the attractant). The consistency in most metrics of coyote behavior suggest that solutions developed in one area could be universally useful. This study also demonstrates the effectiveness of a large, collaborative approach to studying broad-scale patterns in behavioral traits.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Wildlife disease occurrence increases with urbanization, habitat connectivity loss, and climate change.

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2025-09-26

  datasetOpen access

  Respository for paper "Wildlife disease occurrence increases with urban densification, habitat connectivity loss, and climate change"

  PublisherDOI

• Global monitoring of wildlife mortality through participatory science in near-real time

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-08-12 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Detection of wildlife mortality events is critical for timely conservation and natural resource management. We present an open-source, web-based decision support tool that queries, aggregates and summarizes participatory science data from iNaturalist to monitor mortality events worldwide. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach using four case studies spanning taxonomic, spatial, and temporal scales. In Canada and the United States, high peaks of bird mortality coincided with zoonotic risk during avian influenza outbreaks. Across Latin America, we detected 75 mortality events of critically endangered species. In California, recorded mammal mortality was associated with human infrastructure, including proximity to roads, and to a lesser extent, the human footprint. Mortality of pumas ( Puma concolor ) was detected across nine countries, highlighting the need for international cooperation to conserve mobile species. Our tool enables resource managers to flag emerging threats and empowers participatory scientists to monitor and integrate mortality records for conservation.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

  NSF · $207k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Carmen Bessa‐Gomes

  Écologie, Systématique et Évolution

  15 shared

• Rachel M. Santymire

  Georgia State University

  11 shared

• Christine E. Wilkinson

  California Academy of Sciences

  11 shared

• Cesar Estien

  University of California, Berkeley

  10 shared

• Sarah L. Mesnick

  NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Southwest Fisheries Science Center

  9 shared

• Julie K. Young

  Utah State University

  9 shared

• John Cunningham

  NewYork–Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital

  9 shared

• Simone Des Roches

  University of Washington

  8 shared

Education

• Evolutionary Biology/PhD, Committee on Evolutionary Biology/Biological Sciences Department

  University of Chicago

  2015

• Bachelor's of Arts, Psychology/Environmental Biology

  Columbia University

  2009

Awards & honors

• Grist Fixer
• Cal Academy Fellow