Russell David Gray is a New Zealand evolutionary biologist and psychologist working on applying quantitative methods to the study of cultural evolution and human prehistory. In 2020, he became a co-director of the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. Although originally trained in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

, Gray has become well known for his studies on the evolution of the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

and

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

families using

computational phylogenetic Computational phylogenetics, phylogeny inference, or phylogenetic inference focuses on computational and optimization algorithms, heuristics, and approaches involved in phylogenetic analyses. The goal is to find a phylogenetic tree representing op ...

methods. Gray also performs research on animal cognition. One of his main research-projects studies the use of tools among New Caledonian crows.

Career

Gray completed his Ph.D. at the

University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...

in 1990. He spent four years lecturing at the

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

, New Zealand, before returning to the School of Psychology at the

. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and has been awarded with several fellowships, as well as the inaugural Mason Durie Medal (in 2012) for his pioneering contributions to social science. In 2014, he became one of the two founding directors of the

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History The Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology () performs fundamental research into archaeological science. The institute is one of more than 80 research institutes of the Max Planck Society and is located in Jena, Germany. History Max Planc ...

in Jena, Germany, where he has been heading the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution ntil it moved to Leipzig in 2020 He also holds adjunct positions in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland and the Department of Philosophy at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

. Gray's doctoral thesis was titled ''Design, constraint and construction: essays and experiments on evolution and foraging''. Notable students of Gray include Simon Greenhill.

References

External links

Official faculty page
;Video
Video on Russell Gray's research (Latest Thinking)
Evolutionary biologists Computational linguistics researchers Linguists of Austronesian languages Academic staff of the University of Auckland Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Phylogenetics researchers University of Auckland alumni Max Planck Institute directors James Cook Research Fellows {{biologist-stub