Joseph "Joe" Felsenstein (born May 9, 1942) is a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Genome Sciences and

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 ...

at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. He is best known for his work on phylogenetic inference, and is the author of ''Inferring Phylogenies'', and principal author and distributor of the package of phylogenetic inference programs called PHYLIP. Closely related to his work on phylogenetic inference is his introduction of methods for making statistically independent comparisons using phylogenies.

Education

Felsenstein did his undergraduate work at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

where he did undergraduate research under James F. Crow. He then did doctoral work under Richard Lewontin in the 1960s, when he was at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, and did a postdoc at the Institute of Animal Genetics in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

prior to becoming faculty at the

Research

In addition to his work in

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

s, Felsenstein is also noted for his work in theoretical

population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as Adaptation (biology), adaptation, s ...

, including studies on selection, migration, linkage, speciation, and the coalescent.

Awards

Felsenstein is a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. He was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal by the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript a ...

in 2008. In 2009 he was awarded the John J. Carty Award from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2013 he was awarded the International Prize for Biology by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The moth species '' Ufeus felsensteini'' was named in his honor.

Personal life

Felsenstein is the older brother of early personal computer designer Lee Felsenstein.Early History of the Personal Computer
/ref> An interview covering aspects of his academic career is part of the Distinguished Faculty Interview Series of the Department of Genome Sciences,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Felsenstein, Joseph Living people University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Population geneticists American evolutionary biologists Computational phylogenetics 1942 births University of Washington faculty Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Phylogenetics researchers