S. Blair Hedges

Professor of Biology

Address

Department of Biology

The Pennsylvania State University

208 Mueller Laboratory

University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-5301

Tel. 814-865-9991

E-mail: sbh1-at-psu-dot-edu

Degrees

Ph.D. (1988) & M.Sc. (1984), Zoology, University of Maryland

B.Sc. (1981), Biology, George Mason University

w/Renaissance map of Caribbean

(AP Photo/Pat Little)

Other positions and affiliations

Member, NASA Astrobiology Institute (1998-present) (http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/).

Research Associate, National Museum of National History, Washington, DC (1998-present).

Director, Astrobiology Summer Program, Pennsylvania State University (2002-present)

Member, NASA Astrobiology Roadmap Committee (2001-2003).

Co-Chair, Evolutionary Genomics Focus Group, NASA Astrobiology Institute (2000-present) (http://www.evogenomics.org/).

Chairman, Genomes and Evolution 2004, Annual meeting of Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and American Genetic Association (http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/genomes/)

Coordinator for the Caribbean, Global Amphibian Assessment (http://www.globalamphibians.org/), (2001-present).

Co-Director, TimeTree Project and Consortium (www.timetree.org)

Organizer, Discovering the Timetree of Life symposium, Phoenix (2006)

Selected awards and recognition

Most highly cited article in BMC Evolutionary Biology (source: ISI Web of Science).

Who's Who in the World (2008)

Who's Who in the America (2008) 

Nature "Champagne Writing" Award (best News & Views, 2003) (Nature 426:773)

Philips Distinguished Lecture, Haverford College, 2003

Karling Lecture, Mycological Society of America, 2002

Darwin Lecture, Natural History Museum, London, 2001

Hot Paper in Biology, Institute for Scientific Information (for Nature 392:917-920)

Faculty Associates Teaching Award, Pennsylvania State University, 1997

Selected achievements

Discovered or co-discovered 72 species of amphibians and reptiles, including the smallest tetrapod (a frog) and smallest amniote vertebrate (a lizard). Species described

Discovered five species of butterflies.

Invented a method (print clock) for dating early books and prints.

Research interests

I am an evolutionary biologist. In general, my research is discovery-based rather than experiment-based and concerns organisms rather than genes or structures, as the focus of investigation. My research is also multidisciplinary in that I explore connections between biological evolution and Earth history in diverse groups of organisms and time periods. The evidence I use often comes from molecular sequence data, which I collect and analyze to obtain information on relationships and times of origin. In summary, my goal is to learn more about the natural world, and especially the major patterns and underlying mechanisms that have shaped the evolutionary history of life.

     Biological disciplines represented in my research include astrobiology, biodiversity, bioinformatics, conservation, ecology, genomics, molecular evolution, natural history, paleontology, phylogenetics, and systematics. Other disciplines represented are astronomy, climatology, and geology.

Other academic interests

The biodiversity of the West Indies and its conservation, especially the amphibians and reptiles (see www.caribherp.org).

The discovery of America as recorded in maps and artwork (especially woodblock and copperplate prints) of the Renaissance (see www.caribmap.org and www.printclock.org).