Will Rice

Hey there! I'm Will.

I am an Assistant Professor of Outdoor Recreation and Wildland Management in the Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Program and Department of Society and Conservation at the University of Montana.

My research seeks to provide wildland recreation managers with social science to improve the experiences of all visitors while preserving the ecosystems that support those experiences. This agenda focuses broadly on research concerning visitor use management in parks and protected areas. More specifically, I'm interested in guiding innovation across conservation communication, wilderness management, recreation allocation, and the nexus of visitor use and health. 

I earned my M.S. in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management and Ph.D. in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and the Environment and Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management from Pennsylvania State University. Prior to graduate school, I earned a B.S. in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and Policy from Clemson University. In 2015, I became the first Clemson University student to receive the Udall Scholarship. Prior to my career in academia, I served as a Directorate Fellow with the Alaska region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and as a trail crew member and ranger with the National Park Service in Wind Cave, Yellowstone, Cape Cod, the Missouri River, and Grand Canyon. 

As the head of the Wildland and Recreation Management Research Laboratory at the University of Montana, my research seeks to inform the management of shifting demand for wildland recreation in parks and protected areas. Core questions within the research agenda include:

• What factors drive visitor demand?

• How does shifting demand influence the ecosystem services attained by visitors? 

• How can we change visitor behavior in the face of increasing visitor use to meet management objectives and limit visitors’ ecological impacts?

• How can wilderness managers best navigate trade-offs between wilderness character qualities in the face of changing use levels?

• How can we fairly ration recreation in the face of use limits?

• How are visitor norms changing across time and space?

In service of this research agenda, I frequently collaborate with interdisciplinary teams of conservation social scientists, resource economists, wildlife biologists, recreation ecologists, tourism and hospitality scholars, designers, and agency partners.