Professor Jonathan Losos is a preeminent evolutionary biologist whose distinguished career has profoundly shaped our understanding of evolutionary adaptation and speciation. He currently holds the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professorship at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also serves as the founding director of the Living Earth Collaborative. This innovative partnership unites Washington University, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Saint Louis Zoo in advancing biodiversity science. Losos earned his bachelor's degree in biology from Harvard University in 1984 and completed his doctoral studies in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. His early academic career included faculty positions at Washington University from 1992 to 2006, during which he served as director of the Tyson Research Center, before transitioning to Harvard University as the Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America.
Losos has achieved international recognition for his transformative research on Anolis lizards, which has established these reptiles as a premier model system for studying evolutionary processes. His integrative approach combines field ecology, functional morphology, systematics, and experimental evolution to understand how species adapt to diverse environmental conditions across the Caribbean islands. Through innovative field experiments and laboratory analyses, Losos has demonstrated the remarkable capacity for rapid evolutionary change in natural populations, challenging traditional views of evolutionary tempo. His work has fundamentally advanced our comprehension of adaptive radiation and the ecological mechanisms driving species diversification. Losos has authored three influential books including Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution and The Cat's Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savannah to Your Sofa, alongside numerous high-impact scientific publications.
As an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Losos has significantly shaped the field through his scholarly leadership and collaborative vision. His current directorship of the Living Earth Collaborative represents a pioneering effort to address biodiversity challenges through unprecedented institutional partnerships that bridge academic research with conservation practice. Losos has received numerous prestigious honors including the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize, and the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award for his exceptional contributions to evolutionary biology. His laboratory continues to explore critical questions about evolutionary adaptation, with emerging research focusing on how species respond to urban environments. Through mentorship, scholarly leadership, and innovative research initiatives, Losos ensures that evolutionary biology remains central to addressing contemporary challenges in biodiversity conservation and understanding the future of evolutionary processes.
