Eugene Viktorovich Koonin is a Russian-American biologist and Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). He is a recognised expert in the field of evolutionary and computational biology.
George Christopher Williams was an American evolutionary biologist.
Morphometrics or morphometry refers to the quantitative analysis of form, a concept that encompasses size and shape. Morphometric analyses are commonly performed on organisms, and are useful in analyzing their fossil record, the impact of mutations on shape, developmental changes in form, covariances between ecological factors and shape, as well for estimating quantitative-genetic parameters of shape. Morphometrics can be used to quantify a trait of evolutionary significance, and by detecting changes in the shape, deduce something of their ontogeny, function or evolutionary relationships. A major objective of morphometrics is to statistically test hypotheses about the factors that affect shape.
Douglas Joel Futuyma is an American evolutionary biologist. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York and a Research Associate on staff at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His research focuses on speciation and population biology. Futuyma is the author of a widely used undergraduate textbook on evolution and is also known for his work in public outreach, particularly in advocating against creationism.
John G. Webster was an American electrical engineer and a founding pioneer in the field of biomedical engineering. In 2008, Professor Webster was awarded the University of Wisconsin, College of Engineering, Polygon Engineering Council Outstanding Instructor Award. In 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded him its James H. Mulligan Jr. Educational Medal for his career contributions. Professor Webster died on March 29, 2023.
Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) use information on the historical relationships of lineages (phylogenies) to test evolutionary hypotheses. The comparative method has a long history in evolutionary biology; indeed, Charles Darwin used differences and similarities between species as a major source of evidence in The Origin of Species. However, the fact that closely related lineages share many traits and trait combinations as a result of the process of descent with modification means that lineages are not independent. This realization inspired the development of explicitly phylogenetic comparative methods. Initially, these methods were primarily developed to control for phylogenetic history when testing for adaptation; however, in recent years the use of the term has broadened to include any use of phylogenies in statistical tests. Although most studies that employ PCMs focus on extant organisms, many methods can also be applied to extinct taxa and can incorporate information from the fossil record.
Lawrence Basil Slobodkin was an American ecologist and Professor Emeritus at the Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, State University of New York. He was one of the leading pioneers of modern ecology. His innovative thinking and research, provocative teaching, and visionary leadership helped transform ecology into a modern science, with deep links to evolution.
Robert Reuven Sokal was an Austrian–American biostatistician and entomologist. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Stony Brook University, Sokal was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He promoted the use of statistics in biology and co-founded the field of numerical taxonomy, together with Peter H. A. Sneath.
Riccardo Poli is a Professor in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems of the University of Essex. His work has centered on genetic programming.
Marcus Thomas Pius Gilbert is an evolutionary biologist. His work is highly cited, and influential in the fields of palaeogenomics, evolutionary genomics and evolutionary hologenomics. He is currently the director of the University of Copenhagen's Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics.
Susan Elizabeth Evans is a British palaeontologist and herpetologist. She is the author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.
Stephen C. Stearns is an American biologist, and the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Emeritus at Yale University. He is known for his work in life history theory and evolutionary medicine.
Junhyong Kim is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Endowed Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of over eighty published scientific papers.
Gloria M. Coruzzi is an American molecular biologist specializing in plant systems biology and evolutionary genomics.
The study of geometric morphometrics in anthropology has made a major impact on the field of morphometrics by aiding in some of the technological and methodological advancements. Geometric morphometrics is an approach that studies shape using Cartesian landmark and semilandmark coordinates that are capable of capturing morphologically distinct shape variables. The landmarks can be analyzed using various statistical techniques separate from size, position, and orientation so that the only variables being observed are based on morphology. Geometric morphometrics is used to observe variation in numerous formats, especially those pertaining to evolutionary and biological processes, which can be used to help explore the answers to a lot of questions in physical anthropology. Geometric morphometrics is part of a larger subfield in anthropology, which has more recently been named virtual anthropology. Virtual anthropology looks at virtual morphology, the use of virtual copies of specimens to perform various quantitative analyses on shape and form...
John Joseph Shea is an American archaeologist and paleoanthropologist. He has been a professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University in New York since 1992.
Laura Faye Landweber is an American evolutionary biologist. As of 2016, she is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of biological sciences at Columbia University. Previously, she was a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. She specializes in RNA-mediated epigenetic inheritance and molecular evolution.
Douglas Soltis is a Distinguished Professor in the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics & Evolutionary Genetics, Florida Museum of Natural History, and Department of Biology at the University of Florida. His research interests are in plant evolution and phylogeny, an area in which he has published extensively together with his wife Pamela Soltis and together they were the joint awardees of the 2006 Asa Gray Award. They are the principal investigators in the Soltis laboratory, where they both hold the rank of Distinguished Professor and are contributing authors of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group.
Tanya M. Smith is a human evolutionary biologist, and Professor at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University.
Christine M. Simon is an American evolutionary biologist and entomologist known for her work in the molecular phylogenetics of mitochondria and the behavior and evolution of cicadas. She is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut, the former editor-in-chief of the journal Systematic Biology, and the former president of the Society of Systematic Biologists.
