Andrew H. Knoll

Andrew Knoll
Born 1951 (age 65–66)
Scientific career
Thesis Studies in Archean and early Proterozoic paleontology (1977)
Website
eps.harvard.edu/people/andrew-h-knoll

Andrew Herbert Knoll (born 1951) is the Fisher Professor of Natural History[1] and a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences[2] at Harvard University.[2][3] Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania in 1951, Knoll graduated from Lehigh University with a bachelor of arts in 1973[2][3] and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977[3] for a dissertation entitled "Studies in Archean and Early Proterozoic Paleontology."[2] Knoll taught at Oberlin College for five years before returning to Harvard as a professor in 1982.[2] At Harvard, he serves in the departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Earth and Planetary Sciences.[1][2]

Scientific work

Andrew Knoll is best known for his contributions to Precambrian paleontology and biogeochemistry. He has discovered microfossil records of early life in Spitsbergen, East Greenland, Siberia, China, Namibia, western North America, and Australia,[1] and was among the first to apply principles of taphonomy and paleoecology to their interpretation. He has also elucidated early records of skeletonized animals in Namibia and remarkable fossils of the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation, China, preserved in exceptional cellular detail by early diagenetic phosphate precipitation. Knoll and colleagues authored the first paper to demonstrate strong stratigraphic variation in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates and organic matter preserved in Neoproterozoic (1000-542 million years ago) sedimentary rocks, and Knoll’s group also demonstrated that mid-Proterozoic carbonates display little isotopic variation through time, in contrast to both older and younger successions.

Knoll has longstanding interests in biomineralization, paleobotany, plankton evolution, and mass extinction.[1][2] Among other things, Knoll and his colleagues were the first to hypothesize that rapid build-up of carbon dioxide played a key role in end-Permian mass extinction, 252 million years ago. More generally, Knoll uses physiology as a conceptual bridge to integrate geochemical records of environmental change with paleontological records of biological history. He has also served as a member of the science team for NASA's MER rover mission to Mars.[4]

Honors include membership in the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Microbiology, as well as the Paleontological Society Medal, the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society (London), the Moore Medal of the Society for Sedimentary Geology, the Oparin Medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, and both the Walcott and Thompson medals of the US National Academy of Sciences. He received the Phi Beta Kappa Book Award for "Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth". On May 31, 1996 Knoll received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University, Sweden [5]

Books

Selected Papers

Honors

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-07-26. Retrieved 2013-07-08.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 http://eps.harvard.edu/people/andrew-h-knoll
  3. 1 2 3 http://www.gf.org/fellows/7988-andrew-h-knoll%5B%5D
  4. ↑ http://www.astrobio.net/interview/334/biodiversity-interview-with-andrew-knoll-part-i
  5. ↑ http://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/traditions/prizes/honorary-doctorates/
  6. ↑ https://royalsociety.org/people/andrew-knoll-11763/
  7. ↑ "University to bestow seven honorary degrees at 519th Convocation". May 27, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 13 May 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
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