Sarah Perin "Sally" Otto (born October 23, 1967) is a theoretical biologist,

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in Theoretical and Experimental Evolution, and is currently a Killam Professor at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...

. From 2008-2016, she was the director of the Biodiversity Research Centre at the

. Otto was named a 2011

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

. In 2015 the

American Society of Naturalists The American Society of Naturalists was founded in 1883 and is one of the oldest professional societies dedicated to the biological sciences in North America. The purpose of the Society is "to advance and diffuse knowledge of organic evolution and o ...

gave her the

Sewall Wright Award The Sewall Wright Award is given annually by the American Society of Naturalists to a "senior-level" and active investigator making fundamental contributions the conceptual unification of the biological sciences. The award was established in 1991 a ...

for fundamental contributions to the unification of biology. In 2021, she was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal for contributing major advances to the mathematical theory of evolution.

Education

Otto received her

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in 1988 and her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1992 from Stanford University. She did post-doctoral research with

Nick Barton Nicholas Hamilton Barton (born 30 August 1955) is a British evolutionary biologist. Education Barton was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge where he graduated with a first-class degree in Biological Sciences (Cambridge) in 1976 and gained his ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

Research focus

Otto's research focus is a multi-pronged approach of population-genetic mathematical models and statistical tools to understand how evolutionary processes generate diverse biological features. The core of her research revolves around analyzing mathematical models and exploring the insights they yield about how biological systems evolve. Dr. Otto is also the author of the book "A Biologist's Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution". Through the analysis and development of stochastic models, Dr. Otto's colleagues and herself have shown how genes are transmitted across generations, the context in which genes are expressed, and how evolutionary constraints influence life trait evolution. The second major component of Dr. Otto's research involves the development of statistical tools such as likelihood-based approaches that allow them to infer how particular traits influence speciation and extinction. This allows us to answer questions such as: Do pollinators promote speciation of colorful flowers? Does genome size influence diversification? According to Otto, her research uses "mathematical models to clarify how features of an organism affect its potential for and rate of adaptation. She also steps back to address why such features vary in the first place. Why is it that some species produce offspring primarily by cloning themselves, whereas others never do? Why do some species have large

genomes In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding g ...

with many

chromosomes A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...

, while others are streamlined?" Otto's recent work has investigated the genomic changes that underlie adaptation by yeast to harsh environmental conditions.

Awards

* Darwin-Wallace Medal (2021) * Canadian Society for Ecology & Evolution President's Award (2017) *

(2015) * Elected member of (US) National Academy of Sciences (2013) * Guggenheim Fellowship in Natural Sciences For Research (2011) * MacArthur Fellowship For Research (2011) * Steacie Prize (2007) * Royal Society of Canada Fellow (2006) * McDowell Award for Excellence in Research (2003) *

NSERC The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada, CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering rese ...

E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2001) *

Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award (1995)

Science communication

Since 2013 Otto has been the director of the Liber Ero Fellowship program, a post-doctoral fellowship program that supports early-career scientists to conduct and communicate research that informs conservation and management issues. In 2006 she co-founded the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution. She has also served as the Vice-President and President for

The Society for the Study of Evolution The Society for the Study of Evolution is a professional organization of evolutionary biologists. It was formed in the United States in 1946 to promote evolution and the integration of various fields of science concerned with evolution and to organ ...

, The American Society of Naturalists and

The European Society of Evolutionary Biology The European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) was founded in 1987 in Basel (Switzerland) with around 450 evolutionary biologists attending the inaugural congress. It is an academic society that brings together more than 1500 evolutionary bi ...

as well as a council member of The Society for the Study of Evolution and the

American Genetic Association The American Genetic Association (AGA) is a USA-based professional scientific organization dedicated to the study of genetics and genomics which was founded as the American Breeders' Association in 1903. The association has published the '' Journ ...

Bibliography

* ''A Biologist's Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution'', Sarah P. Otto & Troy Day, 2007, 752 pages, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,

References

External links

UBC personal website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Otto, Sarah Mathematical ecologists Living people Stanford University alumni University of British Columbia faculty Academics of the University of Edinburgh MacArthur Fellows Canadian women academics Women evolutionary biologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Canada Research Chairs 1967 births Theoretical biologists