Dr. Kyle Gustafson

Dr. Kyle D. Gustafson is associate professor of biological sciences and of parasitology at Arkansas State University, where he holds a joint appointment in the Beck College of Sciences & Mathematics and the College of Veterinary Medicine. Since 2020 he has also served as Curator of Recent Mammals in the Arkansas Center for Biodiversity Collections.

Dr. Gustafson's research spans parasite community ecology and wildlife conservation genomics, addressing why parasite biodiversity varies across landscapes and how habitat fragmentation erodes the genetic health of wide-ranging mammals, including pumas (Puma concolor) and the American Red Wolf (Canis rufus). His work has been published in Molecular Ecology, Evolutionary Applications, Conservation Genetics, Ecography, Journal of Mammalogy, Royal Society Open Science, Journal of Parasitology, Population Ecology, Wiley, Zea Books, and other scholarly outlets. He has given more than 60 oral presentations at national and international meetings, and his research has been covered by the Los Angeles Times, The Wildlife Society, and regional news outlets. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, NIH INBRE, NASA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, and others, totaling more than $3.1 million as PI or Co-PI.

Since 2018 he has taught more than 740 students across ten distinct undergraduate and graduate courses, including Parasitology, Genetics, Population Genetics, Conservation Genomics, and Mammalogy. He teaches Veterinary Parasitology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. He has advised six graduate students as major professor, served on more than a dozen graduate committees, and mentored over thirty undergraduate researchers, many of whom have won regional and national student research awards.

Dr. Gustafson serves as associate editor of the Journal of Parasitology and as president of the Southwestern Association of Parasitologists, and he received the American Society of Parasitologists' Ashton Cuckler New Investigator Award in 2018. He formerly conducted statewide puma population genomics as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wyoming, work that informed California Department of Fish and Wildlife management decisions. He earned his PhD in zoology from Oklahoma State University and his BS in wildlife and fisheries biology from the University of North Dakota.