Stephen C. Stearns (born December 12, 1946, in Kapaau, Hawaii) is an American biologist, the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. He is known for his work in life history theory.[1]
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Stearns graduated from Yale University in 1967 and went on to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned a masters degree, and the University of British Columbia, where he did his PhD. Before joining the Yale faculty in 2000, he served as Professor of Zoology and Director of the Zoology Institute at the University of Basel.[1] At Yale he chaired the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 2002 to 2005.
Stearns helped to found: the European Society of Evolutionary Biology in 1987.[2] He later served on its Council and as its President. He also founded the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, served as its first managing editor from 1986 to 1991, and later served on its Editorial Board. Together with Tim Clutton-Brock, he founded the Tropical Biology Association in 1991.
Since 2005 Stearns has been an Honorary Member of the Swiss Zoological Society. He is also a Fellow of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology since 2007.
A book Stearns wrote with his wife Beverly Peterson Stearns, Watching, from the Edge of Extinction, was the 2000 winner of the Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications. The book features interviews from people working to save endangered species from extinction.[1]
In 2011, Yale University gave Stearns their DeVane Medal for distinction in undergraduate teaching.[3]