Ronald A. Van Den Bussche is an evolutionary biologist and conservation geneticist that has developed an international reputation through his work on the evolutionary relationships of bats and conservation genetics of threatened and endangered species.  Van Den Bussche’s current research focuses on the conservation of bald and golden eagles.  His lab is utilizing genomic approaches to better understand the partitioning of genomic variation within and among populations of these species.  Identification of these biologically defined boundaries is unknown for bald and golden eagles yet is the critical first step in any conservation or management program so that the managers and policy makers understand the boundaries or the units they are attempting to conserve or manage.  With the increasing number of wind farms being established within the range of bald and golden eagles, coupled with the potential for compensatory mitigation if wind farms kill eagles, this work is timely and critical to the proper management of these culturally and ecologically important species.  Due to this work, Van Den Bussche is a member on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Eagle working groups.