Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Environmental Toxicology, Clemson University, 1995
  • M.Sc., Wildlife Ecology, McGill University, 1989
  • B.Sc., Wildlife Biology, University of Guelph, 1983
Licenses & Certifications
  • 40-Hour Hazardous Waste Operation and Emergency Response Certification (HAZWOPER)
  • 8-Hour HAZWOPER Managers and Supervisor Training
Professional Affiliations
  • Society for Conservation Biology
  • Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

Dr. Nicholas Gard is a Managing Scientist in Exponent's EcoSciences practice based in Bellevue, Washington. He has more than 30 years of experience in ecology, environmental toxicology, and wildlife biology.  

Dr. Gard has managed or conducted natural resource damage assessments (NRDA), ecological risk assessments (ERA), environmental impact assessments, and habitat evaluations in a variety of terrestrial, wetland, estuarine, and marine ecosystems both in the United States and internationally. Dr. Gard has evaluated environmental effects for a range of industrial activities, including manufacturing facilities, mines, smelters, pulp and paper mills, refineries, oil rigs, pipelines, and agro-chemical operations. He has considerable experience evaluating ecotoxicological effects of PCBs, dioxins, heavy metals, including mercury and lead, and pesticides. Dr. Gard is experienced in quantifying risks and damages to ecological systems from a wide range of chemical and environmental stressors, and in identifying suitable mitigation approaches or ecological restoration opportunities to compensate for those impacts.

Dr. Gard has used many field and laboratory ecological and toxicological techniques as part of the site assessments and ecological investigations he has performed, often relying on multi-disciplinary approaches to address complex issues. He has experience in the use of population modeling techniques to assess risks to aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. Additionally, he has used innovative methods in delineating baseline conditions, quantifying reductions in ecological services, and scaling compensatory restoration alternatives using habitat and resource equivalency approaches (HEA/REA). He has designed sampling and analysis protocols, site-specific toxicity evaluations, wildlife surveys, and monitoring programs for many of the projects on which he has worked.