Subdivision
| • | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | [X] |
| | 21 | Name: | Dr. F. Clark Howell | | | Institution: | University of California, Berkeley | | | Year Elected: | 1975 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1925 | | | Death Date: | March 10, 2007 | | | | |
| 22 | Name: | Dr. G. Evelyn Hutchinson | | | Institution: | Yale University | | | Year Elected: | 1956 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1903 | | | Death Date: | 5/17/91 | | | | |
| 23 | Name: | Dr. John Imbrie | | | Institution: | Brown University | | | Year Elected: | 1981 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1925 | | | Death Date: | May 13, 2016 | | | | | | |
One of the founders of modern paleooceanography, John Imbrie was the Henry L. Doherty Professor of Oceanography Emeritus at Brown University at the time of his death on May 13, 2016, at the age of 90. He had taught at Brown since 1967. He earned his B.A. from Princeton University in 1948 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University in 1949 and 1951, respectively. Before moving to Brown, Dr. Imbrie taught at Columbia University from 1952-67, starting as assistant professor and ultimately becoming chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences. Dr. Imbrie pioneered the use of computers to analyze microscopic marine fossil data. In the early seventies, he led an international research effort that solved the longstanding mystery of what caused the Earth's great ice ages. Using marine fossils in ocean sediments to unravel the history of the Earth's oceans and climate, Dr. Imbrie helped confirm the theory that the Earth's irregular orbital motions accounted for the climatic changes that caused vast ice sheets to wax and wane on Earth over the past million years. In addition to more than 60 articles in scientific journals dealing with the Earth's past climate, Dr. Imbrie published four books, including Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery, which he wrote with his daughter Katherine, and which won the 1976 Phi Beta Kappa prize. Dr. Imbrie was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978, and in 1981 was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship. He was a fellow of the Geological Society of America, the American Meteorological Society and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He had been honored with Columbia University's Vetlesen Prize, the American Geophysical Union's Maurice Ewing Medal, the Lyell Medal for Geology of the Geological Society of London, and the Vega Medal of the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography. He also served on numerous national and international scientific advisory committees. | |
| 24 | Name: | Dr. Nina G. Jablonski | | | Institution: | Pennsylvania State University | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1953 | | | | | | |
Nina G. Jablonski: Short Biographical Sketch
I was born and raised in upstate New York, and owe my interest in natural history to my upbringing on a farm. I was inspired to pursue a career in the study of human evolution by documentary accounts of the famed paleontologist, Louis Leakey, who recovered important fossils of ancient humans at Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. I completed an A. B. at Bryn Mawr College with a major in biology in 1975, and then went on to complete a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Washington in 1981. I have always had an insatiable interest in reconstructing the lifestyles and appearance of extinct animals, including our ancestors.
My research has focused on primate and human evolution, and in particular, on the role that changing environments have played in shaping the adaptations of primates and humans through time. I studied the anatomy and evolution of a lineage of Old World monkeys for my dissertation, and have maintained and expanded that research to consider the evolution of the whole group in relation to changes in the physical and biotic environment through time. I have been fortunate to be able to participate in paleontological field work in eastern Africa and many parts of southern and eastern Asia. I have a current paleontological field project in Yunnan Province in southwestern China that involves the exploration of a late Miocene primate-bearing site.
In contrast to many of my colleagues, I enjoy the study of important aspects of primate and human evolution that are not recorded in the fossil record, including the evolution of skin. This research is challenging because it requires drawing upon diverse bodies of evidence, from anatomy and physiology to epidemiology and climatology in order to try to determine why and how evolution took the course that it did.
I became interested in the specific problem of the evolution of human skin color quite by accident when, in 1991, I was asked by a colleague to give a lecture on skin. Realizing that little was known about why skin color variation existed in humans and that new data existed to shed light on the mystery, I embarked on what I thought would be a short excursion into this area of research. Nearly 20 years and many serendipitous discoveries later, the biological and social meaning of skin color has grown to be one of the main foci of research, because of its many ramifications for human health and the quality of human interactions. My research on the evolution of human skin and skin color has been done mostly in collaboration with my husband, George Chaplin. Together we have demonstrated that skin color is the product of natural selection acting to regulate levels of melanin pigment in the skin relative to levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in the environment. Melanin is a natural sunscreen that prevents the breakdown of certain essential biomolecules (in particular, the B vitamin folate, and DNA), while permitting enough UVR to enter the skin to promote the production of essential vitamin D. This research led to my being awarded in 2005 one of the first Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowships ("Guggenheims for race"), in addition to the 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship.
I am committed to bringing science to the public. In 2006, I published the book, Skin: A Natural History (University of California Press), that examined the evolutionary history and cultural importance of skin. I am now working on another book, on the biological and social meaning of skin color. In addition to books and popular articles, I enjoy giving lectures and interviews on human evolution. Many of these are now available in various formats on the internet. I have also collaborated on many scientific documentaries on human and primate evolution for American, European, and Asian television networks.
In 2023, Nina Jablonski becaame an Atherton Professor and Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology Emerita at Pennsylvania State University. | |
| 25 | Name: | Dr. Daniel H. Janzen | | | Institution: | University of Pennsylvania; Area de Conservación Gaunacaste, Costa Rica | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1939 | | | | | | |
Daniel Janzen is DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Technical Advisor to the Area de Conservación Gaunacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. While initially focused on tropical animal-plant relationships, from the early 1980's to the present, Janzen has focused on an inventory of tropical caterpillars, their parasites, and their microbial biodiversity, and on the conservation of tropical biodiversity through its non-damaging development (see ). His 428 publications encapsulate much of this information and its associated relevance for tropical science administration and conservation biology. He and his biologist wife, Winnie Hallwachs, are among the primary architects of the Area de Conservación Gaunacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica (), which was decreed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Janzen received the first Crafoord Prize in biology offered xby the Swedish Royal Academy of Science (1984), the Kyoto Prize in Basic Biology (1997), and the John Scott Award of the City of Philadelphia for activities good for humankind (2003). A member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1992) and the Costa Rican National Academy of Sciences (2002), his activities have had a positive influence on society's awareness of the relevance and potential of conservation of tropical wildland biodiversity for global understanding, national sustainable development, and individual quality of life, both inside and outside the tropics. His current focus is caterpillar natural history, the combination of conservation and biodiversity development, finding the funds to endow the entire national park system of Costa Rica, and facilitating global bioliteracy through the emergence of the ability of all people to be able to identify any organism anywhere anytime through DNA barcoding. | |
| 26 | Name: | Dr. Jonathan B. Losos | | | Institution: | Washington University in St. Louis | | | Year Elected: | 2024 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1961 | | | | | | |
Jonathan Losos is an evolutionary biologist known for his research on how lizards rapidly evolve to adapt to changing environments. He graduated from Harvard University and received his PhD from the University of California. After a postdoctoral stint at the University of California Davis, Jonathan moved to Washington University for his first faculty position, before leaving to become a professor of biology at Harvard and Curator in Herpetology at the university’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He then returned to Washington University in 2018 to become the founding Director of the Living Earth Collaborative, a partnership between Washington University, the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Garden. This new biodiversity center, nearly unique in partnering a leading university, zoo, and garden, has as its mission to advance knowledge and conservation of biodiversity. Losos has written more than 250 scientific papers and three books, most recently The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa (Penguin Random House, 2017), and is an author of a leading college biology textbook (Raven et al., Biology). Losos has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is the recipient of the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists, and the David Starr Jordan Prize. | |
| 27 | Name: | Dr. Ernst Mayr | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1965 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1904 | | | Death Date: | February 3, 2005 | | | | |
| 28 | Name: | Dr. Norman D. Newell | | | Institution: | Columbia University& American Museum of Natural History | | | Year Elected: | 1971 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1909 | | | Death Date: | April 18, 2005 | | | | |
| 29 | Name: | Dr. Ruth Patrick | | | Institution: | Academy of Natural Sciences | | | Year Elected: | 1974 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1907 | | | Death Date: | September 23, 2013 | | | | | | |
Ruth Patrick was a world-renowned scientist who had studied the waterways of South Carolina for more than fifty years. Born in Topeka, Kansas, she learned to share her father's love for nature and microscopic plant life. From there she moved to South Carolina and in 1929 earned a bachelor's degree from Coker College in Hartsville. In 1934, she earned a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. In the early 1950s, she was assigned by the Atomic Energy Commission to collect baseline data on the water quality and biota of the Savannah River prior to the opening of the Savannah River Plant. Dr. Patrick responded by forming a team of scientists from the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences to study the area. She was the first scientist to diagnose the health of a river or stream by plant life and animal species. Her early studies contributed significantly to the developing field of ecology and established for the first time a set of aquatic indices that could be used to describe the health of water systems and the impact of industrialization. Her work has since been modeled by ecologists worldwide. Dr. Patrick's career had been marked with many awards and accomplishments. She held the Francis Boyer Chair of Limnology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. She received the Award of Merit from the Botanical Society of America in 1971, the Eminent Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America in 1972, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Zoological Society of Belgium in 1978. In 1970, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1974 to the American Philosophical Society. In 1989 Dr. Patrick was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science by the University of South Carolina and in 1996 she was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology. She also served on the Wistar Institute's board of trustees for more than three decades and was a trustee emerita. Ruth Patrick was awarded the American Philosophical Society's Benjamin Franklin Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences in 1993. The citation read "in recognition of her study of diatoms, microscopic species of algae, which helped make her one of the world's most distinguished biologists; and developing extraordinarly useful ways of monitoring water pollution." Ruth Patrick died September 23, 2013, at age 105 in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania. | |
| 30 | Name: | Dr. David M. Raup | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 2002 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1933 | | | Death Date: | July 9, 2015 | | | | | | |
David Raup was a paleontologist specializing in synoptic studies of fossil marine invertebrate animals. His research included biocyrstallography of echinoderm skeletons, modeling and simulation of growth and form in mollusks, and analysis of large data bases from the Phanerozoic fossil record with emphasis on the role of extinction in the history of life. His honors and awards included the Paleontological Society Medal and Schuchert Award and membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He had approximately 200 research papers to his credit as well as a textbook, Principles of Paleontology (with S.M. Stanley), and two trade books: The Nemesis Affair and Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? Dr. Raup held a B.Sc. from the University of Chicago and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. He was Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. Before joining the University of Chicago faculty, he taught at Caltech, Johns Hopkins and the University of Rochester and served as curator and Dean of Science at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. David Raup died July 9, 2015, at age 82 in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. | |
| 31 | Name: | Dr. Peter Hamilton Raven | | | Institution: | Missouri Botanical Garden & Washington University | | | Year Elected: | 1988 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1936 | | | | | | |
Peter H. Raven is one of the world's leading botanists and advocates of conservation and biodiversity. For four decades, he headed the Missouri Botanical Garden, an institution he nurtured into a world-class center for botanical research and education, and horticultural display. He retired as president in 2010 and assumed the role of president emeritus and consultant through 2014. Described by Time magazine as a "Hero for the Planet," Raven champions research around the world to preserve endangered plants and is a leading advocate for conservation and a sustainable environment.
In recognition of his work in science and conservation, Raven is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the 2003 Japanese Cosmos Award, the prestigious International Prize for Biology from the government of Japan and the U.S. National Medal of Science, the country's highest award for scientific accomplishment. He has held Guggenheim and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowships.
Raven was a member of President Bill Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. He also served for 12 years as home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the academies of science in Argentina, Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, the U.K., and several other countries. The author of numerous books and reports, both popular and scientific, Raven co-wrote Biology of Plants, an internationally best-selling textbook, now in its sixth edition. He also co-authored Environment, a leading textbook on the environment. | |
| 32 | Name: | Dr. J. William Schopf | | | Institution: | University of California, Los Angeles | | | Year Elected: | 1985 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1941 | | | | | | |
William Schopf, paleobiologist and director of the University of California, Los Angeles's Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life, is an expert in the early history of life. He is the editor of Earth's Earliest Biosphere and The Proterozoic Biosphere: A Multidisciplinary Study, companion books that provide a comprehensive survey of more than four billion years of the earth's history, from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago to events that occurred a half a billion years ago. Dr. Schopf has authored more than 200 scholarly publications on the origin and evolution of life and has received many honors, including the Paleontological Society Medal, the Golden Plate Medal from the American Academy of Achievement, the Centennial Botanist Award from the Botanical Society of America, the National Academy of Sciences' Clark Thompson Medal, the National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman Award, and the Alexandre Ivanovich Oparin Medal from the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life. He earned his A.B. in geology from Oberlin College in 1963 and earned his A.M. in 1965 and his Ph.D. in 1968 from Harvard University. Also in 1968, he joined UCLA's faculty where he has been active in numerous councils and committees. During the late '60s and early '70s, Dr. Schopf worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, serving as a member of the Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston from 1968-71 and as the Principal Investigator of Lunar Samples for the Apollo Program from 1969-73. He has completed field work in over 20 different countries and has received support from the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. His current research interests include the evolution of primitive Precambrian organisms; organic geochemistry of ancient sediments; evolutionary biology; atmospheric evolution; and paleobotany. | |
| 33 | Name: | Dr. Neil H. Shubin | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 2017 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1960 | | | | | | |
Neil Shubin is a scientist, administrator, and writer. Throughout his career, he has been interested in understanding the great transitions of evolution. Leading expeditions around the globe in search of critical intermediate fossils, he has discovered fossil evidence for the origins of terrestrial vertebrates, mammals, frogs, salamanders and other major groups of animals. He also has revealed genetic and developmental mechanisms for these changes by using comparative laboratory-based approaches on modern animals. Linking studies of gene sequence, regulation and function with those of embryology and anatomy, Shubin has revealed deep similarities among different organs that tell of their origins. Educated at Columbia, Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley, Shubin has held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, where he currently holds the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professorship in Anatomy. He has held administrative positions at the University of Chicago (Departmental Chair, Associate Dean, and Senior Advisor to the President), The Field Museum (Provost) and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole (Co-Director). He is the author of: Your Inner Fish, The Universe Within, and Some Assembly Required. The former won the Phi Betta Kappa Science Book Prize and the National Academy of Sciences Scientific Communication Award. Shubin has also received the Distinguished Explorer's Award of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society. Your Inner Fish appeared on PBS as a three-part miniseries. Produced by Tangled Bank Studios of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute it won numerous awards, in eluding an Emmy. Shubin is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017. | |
| 34 | Name: | Dr. Elwyn LaVerne Simons | | | Institution: | Duke University | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1930 | | | Death Date: | March 6, 2016 | | | | | | |
Dr. Elwyn L. Simons is primarily interested in the history, general biology, and behavior of living and extinct primates. His research concerns focus on the early evolution of anthropoids in the late Eocene and early Oligocene of the Fayum Depression, Egypt; the paleoecology, dating, taphonomy, anatomy, and relationships of extinct placentals from these sites; dating, extinctions, anatomy, and relationships of giant subfossil lemurs of Madagascar; behavioral and conservation studies of extant Malagasy lemurs; and the evolutionary history and relationships of middle and late Tertiary apes, as well as Plio-Pleistocene hominids. Dr. Simons has led over 70 field expeditions to Egypt, Madagascar, India, Iran, Nepal, and Wyoming. He has held professional appointments at Yale (1960-77) and Duke Universities (1977-) and was the Director (1977-91) and Scientific Director (1991-2001) of the Duke Primate Center. He has authored nearly 300 scientific publications and is the holder of many high honors. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as many other professional associations. He was elected a "Knight of the National Order" by the government of Madagascar and has been the recipient of awards including the Charles R. Darwin Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. | |
| 35 | Name: | Dr. George Ledyard Stebbins | | | Institution: | University of California, Davis | | | Year Elected: | 1961 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1906 | | | Death Date: | January 19, 2000 | | | | |
| 36 | Name: | Dr. Keith S. Thomson | | | Institution: | American Philosophical Society; University of Oxford | | | Year Elected: | 2011 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1938 | | | | | | |
Keith Stewart Thomson served as the American Philosophical Society’s Executive Officer from July 1, 2012, to June 12, 2017. He graduated from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 1960 and then moved to Harvard University, earning a Ph.D. in biology in 1963. His dissertation was on the evolution of air-breathing at the transition between fishes and the first land animals.
He continued to study both fossil and living fishes when he returned to England as NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London (1963-1965) before going to Yale University (1965-1987), first as a faculty member of the Biology Department, where he was also appointed Curator of Fishes in the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and later as its Director and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. At Yale his studies of ancient fishes inevitably drew him both to the “living fossil” lungfishes and the extraordinary living coelacanth. In 1966 he obtained for study the first fresh specimen of the coelacanth from the Comoro Islands (Living Fossil, 1991). His overall goal was to understand fossils in the same physiological, biomechanical, and ecological terms as we study living animals. In the process he published more than 200 papers on subjects ranging from the evolution of cell size and DNA content in lungfish and intracranial mechanics in the coelacanth and its fossil relatives, to the origin of the tetrapod middle ear and the body shape and swimming mechanics of sharks. From an early interest in embryology, it was but a short step to study the roles that developmental processes play in evolution, and to writing Morphogenesis and Evolution (1988). As an evolutionary biologist he naturally became interested in Charles Darwin and that led to a broader interest in the history of science (for example HMS Beagle, the Story of Darwin’s Ship, 1995).
He moved to Philadelphia as President and CEO of the Academy of Natural Sciences (1987-1995), which included heading a successful capital campaign for a new library building and a research laboratory on Chesapeake Bay. In 1996 he was appointed University Distinguished Scientist-in-Residence at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he introduced the first science curriculum and taught both biology and history of science. In 1998 he was elected to be the first director (in modern times) of the Oxford University Museum, Professor of Natural History, and a Fellow of Kellogg College. At Oxford he was heavily involved in the creation of a new national program of funding for regional (i.e. not state-funded) museums. After retiring in 2003 he returned to Philadelphia to write, and was based at the American Philosophical Society as Senior Research Fellow. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2011.
His recent books include: The Watch on the Heath (published in the USA as Before Darwin) and Fossils: a Very Short Introduction, both in 2005; The Legacy of the Mastodon (2008); A Passion for Nature: Thomas Jefferson and Natural History (2008); The Young Charles Darwin (2009); Jefferson’s Shadow: The Story of his Science (2012), and Private Doubt, Public Dilemma (2015). | |
| 37 | Name: | Dr. James W. Valentine | | | Institution: | University of California, Berkeley | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1926 | | | Death Date: | April 7, 2023 | | | | | | |
James W. Valentine is the Professor Emeritus of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and the Faculty Curator Emeritus at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. He previously taught at the University of Missouri, the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. James Valentine has made important contributions to evolutionary history by combining paleontology with data from genetics, zoology, botany and other life sciences. He conducted groundbreaking research on the Cambrian Explosion and was among the first paleontologists to use molecular data to investigate the origin of major Metazoan body plans. His papers with Eldridge Moores are among the foundation documents in the plate tectonics revolution and helped establish the University of California, Davis geology department as a leader in the field. In his seminal work Evolutionary Paleoecology of the Marine Biosphere, Valentine employs a hierarchical approach to integrate studies on the environmental and climatic factors that have regulated biotic diversity, and he continues these studies today. A dedicated scholar of the life and work of Charles Darwin, Valentine has built a collection of virtually every edition of Charles Darwin in every language, including 26 of 29 British first editions. He was awarded the Paleontology Society Medal in 1996. He was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2005. | |
| 38 | Name: | Dr. David B. Wake | | | Institution: | University of California, Berkeley | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1936 | | | Death Date: | April 29, 2021 | | | | | | |
David B. Wake had been at Berkeley since 1969, and since July, 2003, was Professor Emeritus of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught evolutionary biology and conducted research in that field. He was recalled for research duty as Professor of the Graduate School. He spent the first 17 years of his life in rural South Dakota, graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and received his doctoral education at the University of Southern California under the sponsorship of Jay M. Savage. Dr. Wake was on the faculty of the University of Chicago before moving to Berkeley. His initial appointments at Berkeley were in the Department of Zoology and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, where he continues to serve as a curator of Herpetology. In 1972 he became director of the museum, serving continuously until 1999, when he resumed his position as Curator of Herpetology. From 1998-2002 Dr. Wake was Chairman of the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Systemwide University of California Natural Reserve system. He was the first holder of the John and Margaret Gompertz Chair in Integrative Biology (1991-97) and was the Faculty Research Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2004. Dr. Wake's research career has been driven by the general question of how lineages diversify at different hierarchical levels during their evolution. He uses molecular, cellular, tissue, whole organismal and populational approaches to study development, functional morphology, neuroanatomy, population biology, geographical ecology, phylogeography, systematics, and conservation biology. The research focus is amphibians, especially salamanders. Special attention has been given to the largest family, the lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae), the only salamander lineage that has occupied tropical environments, all in the New World. Explanations for the tropical invasion have led to generalizations about the nature of lineage diversification, factors responsible for structural and functional innovation, and adaptive radiations. In his systematic research more than 50 new species have been discovered and described, including ten from California alone. Dr. Wake has authored more than 340 scientific papers and books. The plight of amphibians around the world and implications of their decline and disappearance were first highlighted by Wake at a National Research Council workshop in 1990. He was a co-founder and first director of the international Task Force on Declining Amphibian Populations of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, and was an active participant in the recently concluded Global Amphibian Assessment. A successful website, AmphibiaWeb, was launched in 2000 under his leadership, and he continues to direct it. His interests in this area and as a curator led to new developments in the field of biodiversity informatics and he was Principal Investigator for HerpNET, a recently concluded five year, NSF sponsored program in which a consortium of 36 institutions is developing a distributed database for more than 5 million specimens of amphibians and reptiles around the world. He is also a Principal Investigator of a five-year project in NSF's Annotated Tree of Life Program, AmphibiaTree, being conducted by scientists at four major universities. More than 40 graduate students have received doctoral degrees under Dr. Wake's guidance, and he has sponsored many postdoctoral scholars as well. He was elected president of the American Society of Zoologists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the American Society of Naturalists, and served as editor of the journal Evolution. At the University of Chicago he won the Quantrell Award for excellence in teaching. In 2002-03 he was Alexander Agassiz Visiting Professor at Harvard University. A former Guggenheim Fellow, Dr. Wake also was the recipient of the Outstanding Herpetologist award (Herpetologists League), the Joseph Grinnell Medal (Museum of Vertebrate Zoology), the Henry S. Fitch Award (American Society of Ichythyologists and Herpetologists) and the Joseph Leidy Medal (Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia) for his scientific work. He was awarded the Berkeley Citation in 2006. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the California Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wake is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and the National Academy of Sciences. He died on April 29, 2021. | |
| 39 | Name: | Dr. Edward O. Wilson | | | Institution: | Harvard University; E.O. Wilson Foundation | | | Year Elected: | 1976 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1929 | | | Death Date: | December 26, 2021 | | | | | | |
Edward O. Wilson is Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. A preeminent biological theorist, he earned B.S. and M.A. degrees in biology from the University of Alabama and his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University. He joined Harvard's faculty in 1956 and distinguished himself as a researcher, professor of zoology and curator in entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Dr. Wilson conducted pioneering work on chemical communication from the 1950s through the 1970s. His accomplishments include the first comprehensive account of pheromones in ants, and (with Bossert) the first evolutionary analysis of the physical and chemical properties of pheromones; the creation (with MacArthur) of the theory of island biogeography, a basic part of modern ecology and conservation biology; the creation of the discipline of sociobiology, in 1975; and the first modern syntheses of knowledge of social insects, in 1971, and (with Hölldobler) of ants in particular, in 1990. Dr. Wilson's current work continues to focus on entomological and environmental research. Two of E.O. Wilson's 25 books have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize - On Human Nature (1978) and The Ants (1990), co-authored with Hölldobler. His acclaimed The Diversity of Life (1992), which brought together knowledge of the magnitude of biodiversity and the threats to it, had a major public impact. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) draws together the sciences, humanities, and the arts into a broad study of human knowledge, while The Future of Life (2002) offers a plan for saving Earth's biological heritage. Among Dr. Wilson's recent volumes is a monograph including 337 species new to science, Pheidole in the New World: A Hyperdiverse Ant Genus (2003), another book with Hölldobler, Superorganism (2008), and The Social Conquest of Earth (2012). In 2010 he wrote his first novel, Anthill, which was followed in 2013 by Letters to a Young Scientist. He was founder and also serves as honorary chairman of the Encyclopedia of Life, an online resource (www.eol.org) that aims to provide detailed information on every species known to science. The project's first 30,000 pages went online in February 2008, with the remaining 1.77 million pages predicted to be available within the next decade. Dr. Wilson is the recipient of over one hundred awards recognizing his international contributions to science and humanity. These include the National Medal of Science (1976), the Japan International Prize for Biology (1993), the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1990), the Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society (1999), the Brookly Botanic Garden Visionary Award (2012) and the Cosmos Prize of the Japan’s Expo ’90 Foundation (2012). The citation of the APS award reads "in recognition of the great contributions this scientist has made through his research on ants to a better understanding of their societal relationships. Using exacting methods he has produced a new understanding of the processes which produce man's creative achievements by subjecting them to the rigorous analyses used in studying the physical and chemical characteristics of ants and other species." E.O. Wilson was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 1976. | |
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