Loyola University Chicago

Keynote Seminar

Dr. Neil Shubin,
Robert R. Bensley Professor,
Organismal Biology and Anatomy
The University of Chicago

Using Fossils and Genes to Find Your Inner Fish

Friday, April 17, 2009
4:00 p.m.
Galvin Auditorium
Sullivan Center
Reception and book signing to follow

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.

Shubin's most recent discovery, Tiktaalik roseae, has been dubbed the "missing link" between fish and land animals. 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), 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 of Chicago faculty as Chairman of Organismal Biology & Anatomy in 2001.

Larger version of this poster by Hunter Cole