Class
| • | 2. Biological Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Dr. May R. Berenbaum | | | Institution: | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1953 | | | | | | |
May Berenbaum is one of the most original biologists in the country. An ingenious experimentalist, she has long studied the interactions of two of the primary organisms on the planet: insects and plants. In doing so, she has uncovered the mechanisms by which plants fend off insects and insects circumvent these barriers. A prolific author and exquisite speaker, she has written five books, including the classic Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs (1994). Dr. Berenbaum received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1980 and currently serves as a professor and head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois. She was one of the youngest biologists in the National Academy of Sciences at the time of her election.
She has been honored with many awards, including the George Mercer and the Robert H. MacArthur Awards of the Ecological Society of America, the E.O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists, and Silverstei-Simeone Award from the International Society for Chemical Ecology. She won the Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award from the American Association of the Advancement of Science in 2009, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2011, and the National Medal of Science in 2014. Dr. Berenbaum's weekly radio program on insects commands a wide audience, as does her annual "Insect Horror Film Festival", which draws aficionados from all over the world. In 2018 it was announced that she would become Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, beginning January 1, 2019. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Rodolfo R. Llinas | | | Institution: | New York University School of Medicine; Warburg Pincus | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 208. Plant Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1934 | | | | | | |
Rodolfo Llinás was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1934. He went to the Gimnasio Moderno school and received his M.D. from the Universidad Javeriana, Bogota (1959) and his Ph.D. in 1965 from the Australian National University working under Sir John Eccles. Professor Llinás is presently the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman of the Department of Physiology & Neuroscience at the NYU School of Medicine. He has published over 400 scientific articles and is especially known for his work on the physiology of the cerebellum and the thalamus as well as for his pioneering work on the inferior olive, on the squid giant synapse and on human magnetoencephalography (MEG). Dr. Llínas is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1986), the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1996), the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (Madrid) (1996) and the French Academy of Science (2002). | |
| 3 | 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. | |
| 4 | 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. | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Don Craig Wiley | | | Institution: | Harvard & Howard Hughes Medical Institute | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1944 | | | Death Date: | November 16, 2001 | | | | |
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