Evolutionary Biology Home

In the spirit of Sewall Wright and James Crow, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) continues to promote excellence in Evolutionary Biology. Diverse faculty in numerous departments and colleges conduct research in the area of Evolutionary Biology. Furthermore the University has great strengths in numerous fields that pertain to evolution, including bioinformatics, biostatistics, developmental biology, genetics, genomics, ecology, and quantitative genetics.

Areas of particular strength include:

 • Adaptive evolution

 • Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo)                   

 • Evolutionary ecology             

 • Evolutionary genomics

 • Evolution in society

 • Molecular ecology

 • Molecular evolution

 • Paleontology and macroevolution

 • Phylogenetics

 • Population and quantitative genetics

 • Speciation

Sewall Wright          

Website Mission

This web site is a portal to information about evolutionary biology at the University of Wisconsin and provides links to various resources on and off campus. It will serve all members of the UW Evolutionary Biology community (undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and faculty), colleagues at other institutions interested in our programs, and prospective graduate students.

An illustrious history.

The most famous evolutionary biologist to have worked at the UW was Sewall Wright, the father of American theoretical population genetics who spent the latter part of his career in Madison. Another world-renowned theoretical population geneticist and one of the founders of the field of molecular evolution, James Crow, was on the Genetics faculty for many years. Now, despite his retirement, he remains an active member of the Evolutionary Biology community.      

Evolution Community

The evolution community has become organized in recent years.  In 2004 a faculty working group produced the Madison Evolution Education Initiative [link] – a blueprint for a series of steps towards improving education and research in evolution at UW-Madison. Features of this proposal include a graduate program in evolutionary biology that would involve graduate students in working with K12 teachers, full curriculum review of graduate and undergraduate courses, development of a certificate program in teaching evolution for K12 teachers, and increased outreach activities.

In 2005 the community elected the Evolution Coordinating Committee or ECC to represent the interests of the community and move forward the vision of the Initiative.  The committee currently comprises seven faculty (David Baum, chair; Don Waller, associate chair; John Doebley; Dana Geary; Carol Lee; Andy Peters; Jim Stewart) and three graduate students (Chris Hittinger; Genny Kozak; Stacey Smith). The ECC has formed three subcommittees: the Evolution Seminar Series Committee (Chris Hittinger, chair), the Evolution Curriculum Review Committee (Don Waller, chair), and the Darwin Day Outreach Committee (Dana Geary, chair).

Also in 2005, the Department of Genetics kindly agreed to serve as the administrative home of the initiative and allowed staff member, Dr. Mara McDonald to become the program’s administrator.

Becoming a member of the evolution community

Anybody at UW-Madison is welcome to become affiliated with the evolution community by joining the Evolution Email List.  Faculty who wish to become formal members of the community should send Mara McDonald (mamcdona@wisc.edu) a brief paragraph explaining their connection to evolutionary research and links to a lab web-page.

Support

If you want to show your appreciation by supporting the UW-Madison Evolutionary Initiative, please fill out the information below and send it with a check (made out to the Department of Genetics) to:

              The Evolution Initiative

              Laboratory of Genetics

              University of Wisconsin

              425-G Henry Mall

              Madison, WI 53706

Name___________________

Address_________________

Donation intended as an unrestricted gift to support the Evolution Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the direction of Professor David Baum in the Department of Genetics in the amount of: $___________ 

Signature and Date__________________________________________

If you wish to discuss other ways of supporting the initiative, please contact David Baum (dbaum@wisc.edu)

Thanks

The evolution community gratefully acknowledges the following for financial or in-kind support:

UW Graduate School

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

College of Letters and Sciences

Department of Botany

Department of Genetics

Department of Zoology