Subdivision
• | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | [X] |
| 1 | Name: | Dr. Leslie C. Aiello | | Institution: | Wenner-Gren Foundation; University College London | | Year Elected: | 2014 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1946 | | | | | Leslie Aiello served as President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation of Anthropological Research, a private international foundation devoted to the support of broad-based anthropological research, from 2005 to 2017. She is currently President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Her academic interests focus on the evolution of human adaptation as well as on the broader issues of evolutionary theory, life history and the evolution of the brain and cognition. She is perhaps best known for the introduction of the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis (with Peter Wheeler), which addresses energetic trade-offs in the evolution of the human brain.
She received her BA and MA in Anthropology from the University of California (Los Angeles) and her PhD in human evolution and anatomy from the University of London. She spent the majority of her 30-year academic career at University College London where she was Professor of Biological Anthropology (1995-2005), Head of the UCL Anthropology Department (1996-2002), and Head of the UCL Graduate School (2002-2005). She also served as the co-managing editor of the Journal of Human Evolution (1993-1999), has been the primary supervisor for 23 PhD students, has published books and a number of articles in academic journals and has been active with the media in the public dissemination of science and particularly human evolution.
She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. She has served as an officer for a number of anthropological and scientific societies and as a consultant and advisor to a variety of international anthropological institutions and initiatives. She was the 2006 Huxley Memorial Medalist and Lecturer, received an Honorary Fellowship from University College London (2007), was awarded the ‘2007 Musa Urania (Science) from the city of Florence, Italy, and in 2018 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. She is also Professor Emerita (Biological Anthropology) at University College London. Leslie Aiello was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2014. | |
2 | Name: | Dr. Francisco José Ayala | | Institution: | University of California, Irvine | | Year Elected: | 1984 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1934 | | Death Date: | March 3, 2023 | | | | | Francisco J. Ayala is a retired Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. On June 12, 2002, President George W. Bush awarded him the National Medal of Science at the White House, and in 2010, Dr. Ayala won the Templeton prize. From 1994-2001, Dr. Ayala was a member of the U.S. President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. He has been president and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993-96) and of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society of the U.S (2004-05). Dr. Ayala is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and numerous foreign academies and has received many prizes and honorary degrees. Born in Madrid, Spain, he has lived in the United States since 1961 and became a U.S. citizen in 1971. He has published more than 1,000 articles and is author or editor of 37 books. His scientific research focuses on population and evolutionary genetics, including the origin of species, genetic diversity of populations, the origin of malaria, the population structure of parasitic protozoa, and the molecular clock of evolution. He also writes about the interface between religion and science and on philosophical issues concerning epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of biology. Francisco José Ayala died on March 3, 2023, in Irvine, CA, at the age of 88. | |
3 | Name: | Dr. Cynthia M. Beall | | Institution: | Case Western Reserve University | | Year Elected: | 2001 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1949 | | | | | Cynthia Beall is a distinguished anthropologist who, along with her collaborator, Dr. Goldstein, has been interested in the impact of high altitude on the physiology and socio-cultural behavior of people living in such environments. She has studied populations in Tibet, the Andean countries and Ethiopia and is clearly one of the world's leading authorities on this subject. Since 1976 Dr. Beall has taught at Case Western Reserve University, where she has been S. Idell Pyle Professor of Anthropology since 1994 and Professor of Anatomy since 1995. She was elected to the membership of the National Academy of Sciences in 1996. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow in Anthropology and Cultural Studies in 2011. | |
4 | Name: | Dr. Anna Katherine Behrensmeyer | | Institution: | National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution | | Year Elected: | 2021 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1946 | | | | | Anna K. “Kay’ Behrensmeyer is a paleontologist and geologist who is recognized as a pioneer in the field of taphonomy and the study of land environments and faunas through geological time, with particular focus on the paleoecology of human evolution in Africa. She is originally from Quincy, Illinois and earned her undergraduate degree in geology from Washington University, St. Louis, and her doctorate in vertebrate paleontology and sedimentology from the Department of Geological Sciences, Harvard University. After post-doctoral positions at UC Berkeley and Yale University and an interval of teaching at UC Santa Cruz, in 1981 she became a Research Curator in Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. She has served as Acting Associate Director for Science at NMNH (1993-96), co-Director of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ETE) Program since 1988, and Deep Time Initiative Lead Scientist since 2014. Her research uses geology, paleontology, and ecology to investigate the paleoecology of land environments, and she has worked in time intervals ranging from the Permian to the Pleistocene in North America, Africa, and Pakistan. Through experiments and field observations in both modern and past environments, she has built understanding of processes that affect organic remains and control the information content of the fossil record. Much of her work has been collaborative and focused on synergizing team efforts to investigate ecological change through geological time. She has been involved with museum-based education and outreach and was a member of the exhibit core time for the recently renovated Deep Time Fossil Hall at NMNH. Awards include the 2016 R.C Moore Medal (SEPM), the 2018 Romer-Simpson Medal (Society of Vertebrate Paleontology), the 2018 Paleontological Society Medal, and the 2019 G.K. Warren Prize (National Academy of Sciences). She also is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Kay lives in Arlington, Virginia, and is married to William F. Keyser. | |
5 | 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. | |
6 | Name: | Dr. John Tyler Bonner | | Institution: | Princeton University | | Year Elected: | 1972 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1920 | | Death Date: | February 7, 2019 | | | | | John T. Bonner was George M. Moffett Professor of Biology Emeritus at Princeton University. Dr. Bonner served on the Princeton faculty for 42 years and continued his research and teaching for over two decades after his retirement. His prime interests were in evolution and development, and he used cellular slime molds as a tool to seek an understanding of those twin disciplines. Dr. Bonner earned B.S. (1941), M.A. (1942) and Ph.D. (1947) degrees from Harvard University. He joined the Princieton faculty in 1947, chairing the Department of Biology for 14 years and assuming emeritus status in 1990. A member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1969) and the National Academy of Sciences (1973), Dr. Bonner has authored numerous works, including The Evolution of Development (1958); The Scale of Nature (1969); The Evolution of Culture in Animals (1980); Researches on Cellular Slime Molds (1988); and Life Cycles: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist (1992). His more recent books include, Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales (2006) and Randomness in Evolution (2013). John Tyler Bonner died on February 7, 2019 in Portland, Oregon at the age of 98. | |
7 | Name: | Dr. John Cairns | | Institution: | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | | Year Elected: | 1999 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1923 | | Death Date: | November 5, 2017 | | | | | John Cairns spent his research life studying natural ecosystems and how perturbations of various types affect them. His most widely acclaimed publications discussed factors causing stressed ecosystems and their restoration. He made extensive use of statistics and validation predictive models. For decades he used complex multivariant systems in his studies of microcosms and mesacosms. His work on reestablishment of damaged habitats is particularly important today because of the damage done to our planet. Dr. Cairns received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and completed a postdoctoral course in isotope methodology at Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia. He was Curator of Limnology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 18 years and has taught at various universities and field stations, including Virginia Polytechnic University, where was Professor Emeritus beginning in 1995. Dr. Cairns' professional certifications included Qualified Fishery Administrator by the American Fisheries Society, Senior Ecologist by the Ecological Society of America, and the Academy of Board Certified Environmental Professionals. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; the Linnean Society of London; and the American Microscopical Society, of which he was president. He has over 1,500 publications to his credit. John Cairns died on November 5, 2017 at age 94, in Blacksburg, Virginia. | |
8 | Name: | Dr. Bryan C. Clarke | | Institution: | University of Nottingham | | Year Elected: | 2003 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | International | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1932 | | Death Date: | February 27, 2014 | | | | | Bryan Clarke had a distinguished career as a leading figure in the genetical study of populations in nature. More than any other he demonstrated the widespread occurence and importance of frequency-dependent selection. This work, both theoretical and empirical and strikingly original, has helped to explain such diverse phenomena as clinal variation in gene frequencies, evolutionary dynamics of parasite-host interactions, speciation mechanisms in snails, and the maintenance of genetic variation in human populations. He gained prominence as an international spokesman for ecological genetics and as advisor to organizations including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Dr. Clarke served on the faculty of the University of Nottingham since 1971 and became Professor of Genetics Emeritus in 1997. He was awarded the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2008 and the Royal Society's Darwin Medal in 2010. Bryan Clarke died February 27, 2014, at the age of 81 in Nottingham, UK. | |
9 | Name: | Dr. Jared Mason Diamond | | Institution: | University of California, Los Angeles | | Year Elected: | 1988 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1937 | | | | | Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical School, researches integrative and evolutionary physiology and regulation of nutrient transport, among other interests. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1961 and spent five years at Harvard University as a junior fellow and associate in biophysics before joining the faculty at UCLA in 1966. Dr. Diamond is known for his outstanding achievements in a number of fields, as a membrane physiologist, population biologist (particularly island ecology) and intrepid explorer (reaching several previously unvisited and almost inaccessible mountain ranges in the interior of New Guinea). His brilliant analysis of the factors controlling species diversity completely revolutionized that branch of population biology, and his delightful essays in Nature dealing with little known aspects of biology document the breadth of his scholarship. His popular science works often combine anthropology, biology, linguistics, genetics and history. Dr. Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) was recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, and his recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2004), examines some of the great civilizations of the past and what contemporary society can learn from their fates. He is also the author of The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? (2012). The recipient of numerous prizes, including the 1998 Japanese Cosmos Award, Dr. Diamond is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. | |
10 | Name: | Dr. Andrew H. Knoll | | Institution: | Harvard University | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1951 | | | | | Andrew Knoll is Fisher Professor of Natural History and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and Curator of the Paleobotanical Collections in the Harvard University Herbaria. A world leader in paleobiology, he has served on the Harvard faculty since 1982. Distinguished by his pioneering investigations of global conditions in the early evolution of life, Dr. Knoll has used biological, geological and chemical information to interpret the evolution of unicellular and multicellular organisms, from the most primitive life forms to the origin of metazoa and higher plants. He has used the same approach to explain mass extinctions in the Permian. Dr. Knoll's many honors include the Walcott Medal (1987) and the Mary Clark Thompson Medal (2012) of the National Academy of Sciences, the Phil Beta Kappa Book Award in Science (2003), the Moore Medal of the Society for Sedimentary Geology (2005), the Paleontological Society Medal (2005), the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London (2007), and membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1977. | |
11 | Name: | Dr. Scott Edwards | | Institution: | Harvard University | | Year Elected: | 2020 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1963 | | | | | Scott Edwards is currently Alexander Agassiz Professor, Curator of Birds at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992, after which he spent a decade at the University of Washington.
Scott Edwards pioneered the application of genomics and population genetic approaches to natural populations of birds. He creatively integrates theory with field, museum, and laboratory research. Edwards has led his field of ornithology into the age of genomics by examining genomic evolution in a setting that applies population genetics, systematics, and natural history to diverse questions. His work has broad generality beyond the target taxa, and he has contributed importantly to both theory and methods. His lab applies cutting edge population genetics to studies on diverse problems in genomics and evolutionary biology. With Beerli he modernized phylogeography. With Liu and Pearl he developed methods that promise to revolutionize phylogenetic analyses of large molecular datasets. He has made extensive contributions to understanding behavioral evolution, speciation, and biogeography of Australian birds. Edwards is a versatile and prolific scientist who has proven to be an effective communicator and a wonderful role model.
In 2015 he won the Elliot Coues Award of the American Ornithologists Union. He is a member of the Society of Systematic Biology (president, 2009), the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2009), the American Genetic Association (president, 2011), and the National Academy of Sciences (2015). Scott Edwards was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2020. | |
12 | Name: | Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich | | Institution: | Stanford University | | Year Elected: | 1990 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1932 | | | | | Paul R. Ehrlich received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1957. Co-founder with Peter H. Raven of the field of coevolution, he has pursued long-term studies of the structure, dynamics, and genetics of natural butterfly populations. He has also been a pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation, and in raising issues of population, resources and the environment as matters of public policy. He continues to study the dynamics and genetics of natural populations of checkerspot butterflies (Euphydryas), research that has applications to such problems as the control of insect pests and optimum designs for nature reserves. His policy research on the population-resource-environment crisis takes a broad overview of the world situation but also works intensively in such areas of immediate legislative interest as endangered species and the preservation of genetic resources. A special interest of Dr. Ehrlich's is cultural evolution, especially with respect to environmental ethics. Professor Ehrlich is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. He has received several honorary degrees, the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club, the Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International, a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (given in lieu of a Nobel Prize in areas where the Nobel is not given) and in 2001 the Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America and the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Through his book Ecoscience, a standard undergraduate text, and the training of a large squad of graduate students, Dr. Ehrlich has exerted a major influence on environmental biology. | |
13 | Name: | Dr. Thomas Eisner | | Institution: | Cornell University | | Year Elected: | 1986 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1929 | | Death Date: | March 25, 2011 | | | | | Thomas Eisner was a world authority on animal behavior, ecology, and evolution and was one of the pioneers of chemical ecology, the discipline dealing with the chemical interactions of organisms. He joined the faculty of Cornell University in 1955 and remained at Cornell throughout his life. He is author or co-author of some 400 scientific articles and books. A field biologist with working experience on four continents, Dr. Eisner was an active conservationist. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Audubon Society and the National Scientific Council of the Nature Conservancy. He was president of the American Society of Naturalists and chairman of the Biology Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Eisner played a key role in initiating the Congressional Fellow Program in Washington, and in efforts to preserve wilderness areas in Florida and Texas. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, he received numerous honors, including the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Harvard Centennial Medal, the National Medal of Science and, in 2008, the National Academy of Sciences' John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science. He was a foreign fellow of The Royal Society and a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina and Academia Europaea. A well-known nature photographer, he also helped make award-winning film documentaries. Dr. Eisner grew up in Uruguay, became a naturalized American citizen and received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. Fluent in four languages, he was also a pianist and conductor of considerable talent. Thomas Eisner died on March 25, 2011, at age 81, in Ithaca, New York. | |
14 | Name: | Dr. Marcus William Feldman | | Institution: | Stanford University; Xi'an Jiaotong University, China | | Year Elected: | 2011 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1942 | | | | | Marcus Feldman is Director of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies and Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Biology at Stanford University, and Director of the Center for Complexity Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China.
Marcus Feldman’s contributions to evolutionary theory include over four-hundred fifty refereed publications and nine books, mentoring over fifty doctoral and postdoctoral students, including fifteen women from fourteen countries, who remain in academia today and who constitute a truly dominant worldwide force in evolutionary studies, and his application of evolutionary analysis to important social problems.
Early in his career, Feldman became a leader in the study of natural selection acting on many genes simultaneously, i.e., multilocus selection. He used this as a basis for his famous studies on the evolution of genes that control important influences on the evolution of other genes, namely the evolution of mutation, recombination, and migration. His analytical framework remains the gold standard for quantitative studies of modifier genes, for example in the evolution of sex.
With Cavalli-Sforza, Feldman originated the quantitative study of cultural evolution and gene-culture co-adaptation. Largely due to Feldman’s rigorous approach to this theory, it is now a major component of anthropological theory and behavioral economics. The mathematical and statistical approach that Feldman originated has been incorporated into such diverse fields as the evolution of lactose tolerance, the advantage of learning in changing environments, and heritability of intelligence. With colleagues in China, Feldman applied his theory of cultural coevolution to a major problem in Chinese demography, the excess of male births and the cultural preference for sons. His projections for future sex ratios, made using his models of cultural transmission and evolution, have led to major administrative programs aimed at alleviating the shortage of females.
In the field of human genomics since 2001, Feldman has spearheaded the work on DNA polymorphisms, showing the central importance of ancient human migrations to the present pattern of human genomic variation. He has used this work to further his career-long fight against the use of genetics to justify racism.
Over the past fifteen years, working with colleague Odling-Smee and former postdoctoral fellow Kevin Laland, Feldman has developed the quantitative theory of niche construction. This theory extends standard evolutionary theory by allowing the inheritance of organisms’ environments, introducing a complex pattern of feedbacks between genetic and environmental evolution. These feedbacks produce evolutionary dynamics not seen in standard evolutionary theory but which can describe how environmental effects of human culture can affect human genetic evolution. In 2011 Feldman was honored as the Dan David laureat for his work in evolution. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2011. | |
15 | Name: | Dr. Walter M. Fitch | | Institution: | University of California, Irvine | | Year Elected: | 2000 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1929 | | Death Date: | March 10, 2011 | | | | | Walter Fitch received a Ph.D. in comparative biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1958. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison for twenty-four years before moving to the University of California, Irvine in 1986, where he was Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Walter Fitch may be considered the founder of the now widespread discipline of molecular phylogenetics. He developed a method for reconstructing phylogeny based on amino acid sequences and applied it first to the cytochrome c's of 20 species in one of the most cited papers in the field of molecular evolution (Science, 1967). He developed additional methods for phylogeny reconstruction, including parsimony, the most widely used (Systematic Zoology, 1971). Fitch's contributions in molecular evolution have contributed to settle issues such as the phylogeny of South American Indian tribes, the rate of evolution of mice strains, and albumin evolution in reptiles. He pioneered the theory of the molecular evolutionary clock. Most recently, he moved evolutionary theory from reconstructing the past to predicting the future. In a series of papers analyzing the pattern of evolution of the influenza virus, his method has correctly predicted in nine out of eleven years the strain that would predominantly infect the human population in the following season, a significant finding in developing vaccines. Dr. Fitch was the founder of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, and served as editor-in-chief from 1983-93. He had also served on the editorial board of Systematic Zoology, Journal of Molecular Evolution, and Genomics, and was on the advisory board of Biochemical Genetics since 1966. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Human Genome Organization, and a foreign member of the Linnean Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. Walter Fitch died on March 10, 2011, at the age of 81 in Irvine, California. | |
16 | Name: | Dr. Charles Fleming | | Year Elected: | 1973 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | International | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1916 | | Death Date: | 9/11/87 | | | |
17 | Name: | Dr. Philip D. Gingerich | | Institution: | University of Michigan | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1946 | | | | | Philip Gingerich is Ermine Cowles Case Professor of Paleontology and Professor of Geological Sciences, Biology, and Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Gingerich received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1974 and joined the University of Michigan faculty the same year. He has been director of the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology since 1981. Dr. Gingerich studies evolutionary history in the context of environmental change, focusing on the Paleocene-Eocene transition 55 million years ago, the diversification of primates, and the evolution of whales from land to sea. He has directed more than 50 empirical field expeditions in Egypt, Pakistan, and Wyoming. His Egyptian study area at Wadi Hitan is now a UNESCO world heritage site. Dr. Gingerich developed methods for quantifying and comparing evolutionary rates, unifying our understanding that evolution is fast and populations change rapidly in response to natural selection. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2001), recipient of the André Dumont Medal of the Belgian Geological Society (2005), the recipient of the Romer-Simpson Medal of the Societ of Vertebrate Paleontology (2012), and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010. | |
18 | Name: | Dr. Peter R. Grant | | Institution: | Princeton University | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1936 | | | | | A key figure in modern evolutionary biology, Peter R. Grant is most interested in ecology, evolution and behavior. He specializes in the finches of the Galapagos Islands that were originally studied by Charles Darwin and has conducted long-term studies of individual finch populations on some of the smaller islands. He has been able to show that, even over a space of time as short as 15 years, there have been numerous climate changes which have led to clear evidence of natural selection influencing and modifying the genetically determined physical characteristics of the indiviudal finches within a population. With numerous publications to his credit, Dr. Grant has been a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University since 1985. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, the University of British Columbia and Yale University and previously taught at McGill University and the University of Michigan. He has received awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985-86), an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (1996) and the American Ornithologists' Union's Brewster Medal (1983). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London (1987), the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1997) and a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (2007). He has also shared numerous awards with his wife, fellow evolutionary ecologist Rosemary Grant. These include the Academy of Natural Science's Leidy Medal (1994), the E.O. Wilson Prize of the American Society of Naturalists (1998), the Darwin Medal for Evolutionary Biology (2003), the A.I.B.S. Outstanding Scientist Award (2005), the Balzan Prize in Population Biology (2005), the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal (2008), the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation (2009), the Royal Medal in Biology from the Royal Society of London (2017), and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2017) | |
19 | Name: | Dr. B. Rosemary Grant | | Institution: | Princeton University | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | Resident | | Living? : |
Living
| | Birth Date: | 1936 | | | | | Rosemary Grant is interested in the Darwinian problem of explaining how new species arise. In 1973 she and her husband Peter began a long-term and continuing study of the adaptive radiation of Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos Islands. Her research combines studies of archipelago-wide patterns of evolution with detailed investigations of ecological, behavioral and genetic mechanisms of change on the two islands of Genovesa and Daphne. This work has been published in numerous scientific papers and two books, the most recent being How and Why Species Multiply (Princeton University Press 2008).
Rosemary Grant was initially trained at the University of Edinburgh, received a PhD from Uppsala University in Sweden, and was Senior Research Scholar with rank of Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Princeton University. She is now emeritus. She has also shared numerous awards with her husband, fellow evolutionary ecologist Peter Grant. These include the Academy of Natural Science's Leidy Medal (1994), the E.O. Wilson Prize of the American Society of Naturalists (1998), the Darwin Medal for Evolutionary Biology (2003), the A.I.B.S. Outstanding Scientist Award (2005), the Balzan Prize in Population Biology (2005), the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal (2008), the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation (2009), the Royal Medal in Biology from the Royal Society of London (2017), and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2017). | |
20 | Name: | Dr. William D. Hamilton | | Institution: | University of Oxford | | Year Elected: | 1999 | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | Residency: | International | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | Birth Date: | 1936 | | Death Date: | March 7, 2000 | | | |
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