Andrew H. Knoll

Andrew H. Knoll (b. 1951) is the Fisher Professor of Natural History and a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. He is best known for his work on Precambrian microfossils and using stable isotopes for stratigraphic correlation, but has longstanding interests in geobiology, paleobotany and the planetary evolution of Mars. He is a member of the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Earth and Planetary Sciences faculty at Harvard, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Knoll was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania in 1951 and graduated from Lehigh University with a bachelor of arts in 1973. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977 for a dissertation entitled "Studies in Archean and Early Proterozoic Paleontology." Knoll taught at Oberlin College for five years before returning to Harvard as a professor in 1982.

2004 - Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth. (Princeton University Press). ISBN 0-6911-2029-3

Knoll, A.H., Walter, M.R., Narbonne, G.M., Christie-Blick, N. (2004) A New Period for the Geologic Time Scale. Science 305: 621.
Anbar, A.D. and Knoll, A.H. (2002) Proterozoic ocean chemistry and evolution: a bioinorganic bridge? Science 297: 1137-1142.
Knoll, A.H. and S.B. Carroll (1999) The early evolution of animals: Emerging views from comparative biology and geology. Science 284: 2129-2137.
Knoll, A.H., R. Bambach, D. Canfield, and J.P. Grotzinger (1996) Comparative Earth history and late Permian mass extinction. Science 273: 452-457.
Knoll, A.H. (1992) The early evolution of eukaryotic organisms: a geological perspective. Science 256: 622-627.

[edit] Honors

1987 - awarded Walcott Medal for contributions to the study of Precambrian life, in particular the microbial roots of plant evolution
1987 - awarded Charles Schuchert Award, presented to a promising paleontologist under 40
2005 - awarded Paleontological Society Medal
2007 - awarded Wollaston Medal [1], the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London; previous recipients include Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz