Neil Shubin (born December 22, 1960) is an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer. He is the Robert R. Bensley Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, Associate Dean of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and Professor on the Committee of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago along with being the Provost of the Field Museum of Natural History. He is best known for his discovery of Tiktaalik roseae.
Biography
Raised outside Philadelphia, Shubin earned a Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University in 1987. He also studied at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011.
Shubin was ABC News' "Person of the Week" in April 2006 when Tiktaalik was unveiled, and made appearances on The Colbert Report January 14, 2008 and January 9, 2013.
The Communication Awards of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine awarded a $20,000 prize for excellence in communicating science to the general public to Michael Rosenfeld, David Dugan, and Neil Shubin in Film/Radio/TV on October 14, 2015 for "Your Inner Fish". The awards are given to individuals in four categories: books, film/radio/TV, magazine/newspaper and online, and are supported by the W. M. Keck Foundation. Neil Shubin hosted Your Inner Fish on PBS. The show was produced by Windfall Films and Tangled Bank Studios, a production company for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that makes materials available for science classroom education.
Publications
- Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008. ISBN 978-0-375-42447-2
- The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People. Pantheon Books, New York City 2013, ISBN 978-0-307-37843-9
References
External links
- Online reading group discussion of Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish"
- Video (and audio) of interview/discussion about "Wet Paleontology" with Neil Shubin and Carl Zimmer on Bloggingheads.tv
- Lecture (presentation) by Neil Shubin about the discovery of Tiktaalik on YouTube
- Neil Shubin on The Colbert Report. Jan 14, 2008
- Neil Shubin Lecture on "Your Inner Fish" at The University of Texas
- PBS website for 'Your Inner Fish' series