B.Sc. 1960, University of Birmingham
M.A. 1961, Ph.D. 1963 Harvard University
Professional Positions
Executive Officer, American Philosophical Society, 2012–present
Professor Emeritus of Natural History, University of Oxford, 2003–present
Emeritus Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford, 2003–present
Senior Research Fellow, American Philosophical Society, 2003–2012
Visiting Research Fellow, International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello, 2007
Professor and Director, Oxford University Museum of Natural History, 1998–2003
Adjunct Professor of Geology, University of Pennsylvania, 1988–1995
University Distinguished Scientist in Residence, New School for Social Research, 1996–1998
President and CEO, The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1987–1995
Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 1979–1986, Professor of Biology, 1965–1987, Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 1976–1979: Yale University
Honorary Research Fellow, University College London, 1972–1973
Visiting Research Fellow, Australian National University, 1967
NATO Post-doctoral Fellow, University College London, 1963–1965
Major Publications
Morphogenesis and Evolution, Oxford University Press, 1988
Living Fossil, Norton 1991 (Book of the Month Club; paperback 1992; German and Italian editions, 1993; Japanese 1996)
The Common, but Less Frequent, Loon, and Other Essays, Yale University Press, 1993 (nominated for National Book Award), reprinted 1996; 1996 paperback
HMS Beagle; the Story of Darwin’s Ship, Norton. 1995, re-issued as HMS Beagle, The Ship That Changed The Course of History, Phoenix, 2003
Treasures on Earth: Museums, Collections, Paradoxes, Faber and Faber, 2002
The Watch on the Heath, HarperCollins, 2005 also published as Before Darwin: Reconciling God and Science, Yale University Press, 2005
Fossils: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2005 (Farsi edition, 2010)
The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America, Yale University Press, 2008
A Passion for Nature: Thomas Jefferson and Natural History, Thomas Jefferson Foundation and University of North Carolina Press, 2008
The Young Charles Darwin: The Origin of the Origin, Yale University Press, 2009
Over 200 scientific and popular articles.
Boards (past and present)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Wistar Institute for Medicine
The Wetlands Institute
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
Central Philadelphia Development Corporation
Charles Darwin Trust
Philadelphia Area Consortium for the History of Science
Committees (past and present)
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Undergraduate Research Panel
National Academy of Sciences, Committee on the Coelacanth, Film Committee
President’s Council on Environmental Quality, Awards Committee
Visiting Committees, Biology and the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard
Vice-Chancellor’s Committee for the Reorganization of the Biological Sciences, Berkeley
National Science Foundation, Systematic Biology Panel, Presidential Young Investigators
Award Panel
Phi Beta Kappa, Science Book Award Committee
Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, Committee on PCB pollution in the Housatonic River
Editorial boards: Paleobiology, Evolutionary Monographs, Yale Review
Honors and Awards
NATO Post-doctoral fellow, University College London, 1963–1965
Honorary MA, Yale University, 1976
(First) David Starr Jordan Lecturer, Stanford University, 1982
Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, Yale University, 1986
Golden Trilobite Award, Paleontological Society of America, 1995 (for Living Fossil)
Honorary MSc, Wagner Free Institute of Science, 1995
Honorary MA, University of Oxford, 1998
Member, American Philosophical Society, 2011
The 2012 Terry Lecturer, Yale University