Professor Andrew McKechnie

Professor Andrew McKechnie is a professor of zoology at the University of Pretoria and holds the South African Research Chair in Conservation Physiology, co-hosted by the South African National Biodiversity Institute and UP. His research programme investigates the effects of climate change on birds and other animals.

He completed his undergraduate studies and PhD at the University of Natal (now UKZN), where his postgraduate research focused on the ecology and evolution of heterothermic responses in Southern African birds. He spent time at the University of Mexico as postdoctoral Fellow and lectured at the University of the Witwatersrand before moving to UP where, together with the late Professor Phil Hockey of the University of Cape Town, he established the Hot Birds Research Programme to study land birds and climate change.

Since 2017, he has published 97 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications and the Journal of Experimental Biology. He also contributed two book chapters. He served as a subject editor for Global Change Biology.

An Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithological Society; Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa; and Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, he also won the President’s Award from the NRF and an Exceptional Academic Achiever Award from UP.