Neil Shubin (born December 22, 1960) is an American

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

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 The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

along with being the Provost of the Field Museum of Natural History. He is best known for his co-discovery of ''

Tiktaalik roseae ''Tiktaalik'' (; Inuktitut ) is a monospecific genus of extinct sarcopterygian (lobe-finned fish) from the Late Devonian Period, about 375 Mya (million years ago), having many features akin to those of tetrapods (four-legged animals). It may hav ...

'' with

Ted Daeschler Edward B. 'Ted' Daeschler is an American vertebrate paleontologist and Associate Curator and Chair of Vertebrate Biology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He is a specialist in fish paleontology, especially in the Late Devonian, ...

and Farish Jenkins.

Biography

Raised in Overbrook Hills section of

Lower Merion Township Lower Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Philadelphia Main Line. The township's name originates with the county of Merioneth in north Wales. Merioneth is an English-language transcription of the ...

(contiguous to City of Philadelphia) and a graduate of

Lower Merion High School Lower Merion High School is a public high school in Ardmore, a community in Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs. It is one of two high schools in the Lower Merion School District; the other one is Harriton High School. Lower Merion serves both Lo ...

, Shubin earned a A.B. from Columbia College of

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1982 and a Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1987. He also studied at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Shubin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. Shubin was

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

' "Person of the Week" in April 2006 when ''Tiktaalik'' was unveiled, and made appearances on ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show fo ...

'' 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. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017. He also served as interim co-director of the

Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent ...

in 2017.

Awards and honors

In 2019, Shubin was named the recipient of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society Distinguished Explorer Award. Shubin was chosen primarily because of his discoveries to understand the origin of organs in the human body and the connectiveness of all life.

Publications

*
Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
'. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008. *
The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People
'. Pantheon Books, New York City 2013. Universe within, discovering common history
''New York Journal of Books'' *
Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA
'. New York: Pantheon Books, 2020.

References

External links

* ttp://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/8008 Video (and audio) of interview/discussion about "Wet Paleontology" with Neil Shubinand

Carl Zimmer Carl Zimmer (born 1966) is a popular science writer, blogger, columnist, and journalist who specializes in the topics of evolution, parasites, and heredity. The author of many books, he contributes science essays to publications such as ''The Ne ...

Bloggingheads.tv Bloggingheads.tv (sometimes abbreviated "bhtv") is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast on ...

*
Neil Shubin on The Colbert Report. Jan 14, 2008
*
PBS website for 'Your Inner Fish' series
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shubin, Neil 20th-century American biologists American paleontologists American science writers Columbia College (New York) alumni Evolutionary biologists Harvard University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Chicago faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Pennsylvania Department of Biology faculty 1960 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American scientists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the American Philosophical Society People associated with the Field Museum of Natural History