Graham Bell (biologist)

Graham Arthur Charlton Bell FRSC (born March 3, 1949) is an English academic, writer, and evolutionary biologist with interests in the evolution of sexual reproduction and the maintenance of variation. He developed the "Tangled Bank" theory of evolutionary genetics after observing the asexual and sexual behavior patterns of aphids as well as monogonont rotifers.

Born in Leicester, England, Bell attended Wyggeston School before graduating from St Peter's College, Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970, a Master of Arts degree in 1971, and a Ph.D. in animal ecology in 1974. He emigrated to Canada in 1975 where he worked as a biologist for the Alberta Civil Service until 1976. In 1976, he joined the faculty of McGill University as a temporary lecturer. He was appointed a Professor in 1989. In 1992, he was appointed Molson Chair of Genetics. He was Director of the Redpath Museum from 1995 to 2005.

He is the author of The Masterpiece of Nature (1982) which was described by Richard Dawkins as a 'beautifully written tour de force',^[1] Sex and Death in Protozoa: The History of Obsession (1988) and Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution (1996, 2nd ed 2008).

Honors

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1994. He was awarded the Léo-Pariseau Prize in 2002 and the Prix Marie-Victorin in 2004. He was elected President of the Royal Society of Canada in 2013, and became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

Bibliography

• 2015. The Evolution of Life. Oxford University Press.
• 2008. Selection: the Mechanism of Evolution, second edition. Oxford University Press.
• 1996. The Basics of Selection. Chapman & Hall, NewYork and London.
• 1996. Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution. Chapman & Hall, NewYork and London.
• 1989. Sex and Death in Protozoa: the History of an Obsession. Cambridge University Press.
• 1982. The Masterpiece of Nature: the Evolution and Genetics of Sexuality. Croom Helm, London; University of California Press, Berkeley.

References

External links

• "Canadian Who's Who". University of Toronto Press. 1997. 
• "Directors of the Past and Present". Redpath Museum. 
• Prix Marie-Victorin citation (French)
• http://rsc-src.ca/en/about-us/our-people/our-priorities/president-elect-dr-graham-bell