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Bradley Curtis Livezey (June 15, 1954 – February 8, 2011) was an American ornithologist with scores of publications. His main research included the evolution of flightless birds, the systematics of birds, and the ecology and behaviour of steamer ducks.
Livezey was born in Salem, Massachusetts. He grew up in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. His interest in birds started when he was in High School. Livezey earned a Bachelor of Science at Oregon State University in 1976. In 1979 he earned his first Master of Science degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in wildlife ecology and in 1984 his second in mathematics at the University of Kansas. In 1985 he completed a PhD with his thesis Systematics and flightlessness of steamer-ducks (Anatidae: Tachyeres) at the University of Kansas. In 1993, he was hired as Associate Curator of Birds at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and was awarded full curatorship in 2001. During that time, he served as the museum's first Dean of Science. As Curator of Birds, he oversaw around 195,000 bird specimens, the ninth-largest bird collection in the United States.
Livezey's research work dealt with controversial areas of bird phylogenetics and taxonomy. While Livezey's colleagues often used DNA analysis to support their research, Livezey demonstrated a more traditional approach, based on exhaustive studies of bone shape and other characteristics. His general interests included phylogenetic relationships of avian families, phylogenetic relationships of waterfowl, evolution of avian flightlessness, comparative osteology of birds, multivariate morphometrics, and avian paleontology. He was generally considered to be the world authority on the osteology—the study of skeletons—of birds. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the Higher-Order Phylogeny of Modern Birds, co-authored over the course of 10 years with associate Richard L. Zusi of the Smithsonian Institution. This research opus analyzes 2,954 bird characters—traits such as beak shape, relative wing proportions, and feather characteristics—to create the most comprehensive bird classification scheme known to science. Brad was also one of the first researchers to embrace the concept that birds shared their evolutionary lineage with dinosaurs.
On February 8, 2011 Livezey died in a two-car collision caused by icy road conditions on the Pennsylvania Route 910 near his home in Wexford, Pennsylvania.
