Dr. Brett Wright
Professor and Dean Emeritus, Clemson University
Areas of Expertise
Short Bio
Dr. Brett Wright is Professor and Dean Emeritus of Clemson University's College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences at Clemson University. He is former Chairman, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management.
Over four decades, Dr. Wright's research has focused on applying behavioral science to environmental issues. In recent years, he has worked internationally in Africa and Asia, completing research on illegal behaviors related to parks and wildlife and household livelihoods of indigenous peoples living adjacent to parks.
His most recent study involved community-based tourism enterprises and their impacts on conservation of endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo.
He was appointed Director of the Tigers United University Consortium in 2017, a 4-university collaborative to support the Global Tiger Recovery Program. In that capacity, he led teams of faculty from Clemson, Auburn, LSU and Missouri -- all tiger-mascot schools -- in initiatives aimed at reversing the decline in the number of tigers in the wild, until his retirement from the university in May, 2024.
However, he has continued to support parks and wildlife conservation globally. His most recent work has been collaborating to develop curriculum based on training needs of front-line rangers in the Massai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.