 |
 Click for high-resolution image. Photo: John Weinstein/The Field Museum |
Neil H. Shubin Robert R. Bensley Professor, Associate Dean for Organismal and Evolutionary Biology; Provost, The Field Museum Areas of Expertise:
John Easton |
Background:
Shubin's most recent discovery, Tiktaalik roseae, has been dubbed the "missing link" between fish and land animals (more on Tiktaalik). He has also done important work on the developmental biology of limbs. The evolution of limbs is Shubin's specific area of expertise. He uses his diverse fossil findings to devise hypotheses on how anatomical transformations occurred by way of genetic and morphogenetic processes. His new book, Your Inner Fish: A Journey Through the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Pantheon Press), is due out Jan. 15, 2008.
A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow, Shubin earned a Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University in 1987 and joined the University faculty as Chairman of Organismal Biology & Anatomy in 2001.
Neil Shubin researches the evolutionary origin of anatomical features of animals. He has conducted field work in Greenland, China, Canada, much of North America and Africa, and he has published multiple articles in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleobiology, as well as more than 18 articles in Science and Nature.
| University of Chicago Experts Guide | University of Chicago News Office |