Stephen C. Stearns - Misplaced Pages

American biologist (born 1946)

Stephen C. Stearns

Born	December 12, 1946 (1946-12-12) (age 78) Kapaau, Hawaii, United States
Alma mater	Yale University, University of Wisconsin, University of British Columbia
Known for	Life history evolution, evolutionary medicine
Spouse	Beverly Peterson Stearns
Children	Justin K. Stearns, Jason Stearns
Scientific career
Fields	Evolutionary biology, life history theory, evolutionary medicine
Institutions	Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University
Thesis	A comparison of the evolution and expression of life history traits in stable and fluctuating environments: Gambusia affinis in Hawaii (1975)
Doctoral students	Dieter Ebert

Website	stearnslab.yale.edu

Stephen C. Stearns (born December 12, 1946) is an American biologist, and the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Emeritus at Yale University. He is known for his work in life history theory and evolutionary medicine.

Early life and education

Stearns was born in Kapaau, Hawaii and raised in Hawi, Hawaii. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University in 1967. He then pursued a Master of Science degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, graduating in 1971. Following this, he earned a PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1975. In 1978, they were awarded a Miller Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.

Career

From 1978 to 1983, Stearns served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Reed College. He then became a Professor of Zoology at the University of Basel, a position he held from 1983 to 2000. During this period, Stearns also served as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology from 1986 to 1991. From 1991 to 1998, he was the President of the Tropical Biology Association. Additionally, he chaired the European Science Foundation Program in Population Biology from 1994 to 1998 and served as Vice President of the Society for the Study of Evolution in 1995. Stearns was also the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Basel from 1995 to 1996. From 2002 to 2005, he chaired the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, where he has been the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology since 2000.

Investment in Infrastructure

In 1987, Stearns helped to found the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) and later served on its council as well as its president. He also founded the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, ESEB's main journal, and served as its first managing editor from 1986 to 1991 before later joining its Editorial Board. In 1991, alongside Tim Clutton-Brock, they founded the Tropical Biology Association. Additionally, they founded the online open-access journal "Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health" in 2013.

Awards and honors

1987: Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
1993: European Chair of Biology at the École normale supérieure, Paris.
2000: Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications for a book he wrote with his wife, Beverly Peterson Stearns, Watching, from the Edge of Extinction.
2000: Distinguished Ecologist, University of Michigan.
2004: Raymond Pearl Memorial Lecturer, Human Biology Association.
2005: Fellow, Konrad Lorenz Institute.
2005: Fellow, Rockefeller Bellagio Conference and Study Center.
2005: Honorary Member of the Swiss Zoological Society.
2007: Fellow, European Society for Evolutionary Biology.
2011: DeVane Medal for distinction in undergraduate teaching, Yale University Phi Beta Kappa.
2011–2012: Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
2015: Honorary Doctorate, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Zurich.
2021: Yale College Harwood F. Byrnes/Richard B. Sewall Teaching Prize

Selected publications

Books

The Evolution of Sex and its Consequences (Birkhaeuser 1987) ISBN 978-3-0348-6273-8
The Evolution of Life Histories (Oxford University Press 1992) ISBN 978-0-19-857741-6
Evolution in Health and Disease (Oxford University Press 1999, 2nd Ed with Jacob Koella 2007) ISBN 978-0-19-920746-6
Watching, from the Edge of Extinction (first author Beverly Peterson Stearns, Yale University Press 1999) ISBN 978-0-300-07606-6
Evolution, an Introduction (with Rolf Hoekstra, Oxford University Press 2000, 2nd Ed 2005) ISBN 978-0-19-925563-4
Evolutionary Medicine (with Ruslan Medzhitov, Sinauer 2016) ISBN 978-1-60535-260-2

Papers

Stearns, Stephen C. (1976), "Life-history tactics: A review of the ideas", The Quarterly Review of Biology, 51 (1): 3–47, doi:10.1086/409052, JSTOR 2825234, PMID 778893, S2CID 37813334.
Stearns, Stephen C. (1977), "The evolution of life history traits: A critique of the theory and a review of the data" (PDF), Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 8: 145–171, doi:10.1146/annurev.es.08.110177.001045, JSTOR 2096724.
Stearns, Stephen C.; Koella, Jacob C. (1986), "The evolution of phenotypic plasticity in life-history traits: Predictions of reaction norms for age and size at maturity" (PDF), Evolution, 40 (5): 893–913, doi:10.2307/2408752, JSTOR 2408752, PMID 28556219.
Stearns, Stephen C. (1989), "The evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity", BioScience, 39 (7): 436–445, doi:10.2307/1311135, JSTOR 1311135.
Stearns, S. C. (1989), "Trade-offs in life-history evolution" (PDF), Functional Ecology, 3 (3): 259–268, Bibcode:1989FuEco...3..259S, doi:10.2307/2389364, JSTOR 2389364.

References

Stephen, Bijan (February 25, 2013). "Stearner Stuff". The New Journal. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
^ "Noted zoologist Stephen Stearns is new Bass Professor", Yale Bulletin and Calendar, 29 (1), September 1, 2000.
"Yale evolutionary biology professor shares his local background". Hawai'i Public Radio. October 2, 2024. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
"Welcome | Stearns Lab". stearnslab.yale.edu. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
"People | All People | Discover The KLI". kli.ac.at. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
"Prof. Stephen C. Stearns". HSTalks. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
Minute, Academic (December 22, 2014). "Stephen Stearns, Yale University - Continuing Human Evolution". The Academic Minute. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
"Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin". Stephen C. Stearns, Ph.D. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
Stearns, S. C. (2008), "How the European Society for Evolutionary Biology and the Journal of Evolutionary Biology were founded", Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 21 (6): 1449–1451, doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01626.x, PMID 19018942, S2CID 45515198.
"Journal of Evolutionary Biology news, opinion and analysis - Macleans.ca".
"The TBA Council". Tropical Biology Association. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
"About the Journal". Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. Oxford Academic. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
"Welcome | Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology". eeb.yale.edu.
"Distinguished Fellows". European Society for Evolutionary Biology. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
Lim, Tse Yang (Spring 2011), "That wondrous feeling of learning something new: Tse Yang Lim '11 offered these comments about his teacher, Professor Stephen Stearns, at the DeVane Award ceremony in February", Inside the Classroom: Undergraduate Teaching at Yale.
"Ständiges Gastrecht an der Alma Mater für Regine Aeppli". April 27, 2015 – via NZZ.
Behnke, J. M. (January 7, 2009). "Review: Evolution in Health and Disease, 2nd edition, edited by S. C. Sterns and J. C. Koella". Parasit Vectors. 2: 4. doi:10.1186/1756-3305-2-4. PMC 2628889.
Dudgeon, D. (January 2001). "Review: Watching, from the edge of extinction by B. P. Stearns & S. C. Stearns". Porcupine! Newsletter of the Dept. Of Ecology & Biodiversity, U. Of Hong Kong (22): 28–29.
Stearns, B. P.; Stearns, S. C. (2010). "Still watching, from the edge of extinction". BioScience. 60 (2): 141–146. doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.2.8. S2CID 85692844.
Zimmerman, William F. (June 2007). "Review: Evolution: An Introduction, 2nd edition by Stephen C. Stearns and Rolf Hoekstra". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 82 (2): 149. doi:10.1086/519589.

External links

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