Biography:Joseph Felsenstein

From HandWiki
Joe Felsenstein
Born
Joseph Felsenstein

(1942-05-09) May 9, 1942 (age 84)
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
Known forPHYLIP
Felsenstein's tree-pruning algorithm
AwardsSewall Wright Award (1993)
Weldon Memorial Prize (2000)
Darwin–Wallace Medal (2008)
John J. Carty award (2009)
International Prize for Biology (2013)
Scientific career
FieldsSystematics
Phylogenetics
Population genetics
Phylogenetic comparative methods
InstitutionsUniversity of Washington
ThesisStatistical Inference and the Estimation of Phylogenies (1968)
Doctoral advisorRichard Lewontin[1]
Notable studentsFred W. Allendorf
Michael Turelli
Bruce Walsh
Websitewww.gs.washington.edu/faculty/felsenstein.htm
evolution.genetics.washington.edu/phylip/felsenstein.html

Joseph "Joe" Felsenstein (born May 9, 1942[2]) is an American phylogeneticist and computational biologist, and a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is best known for his work on phylogenetic inference, and is the author of Inferring Phylogenies, and principal author and distributor of the package of phylogenetic inference programs called PHYLIP. Closely related to his work on phylogenetic inference is his introduction of methods for making statistically independent comparisons using phylogenies.[3][4][5]

Education

Felsenstein completed his undergraduate degree in 1964 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, researching in the laboratory of James F. Crow.[6] He completed a PhD at the University of Chicago in 1968, working under population genetics pioneer Richard Lewontin.[7] He did a postdoc at the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh[7], then joined the faculty at the University of Washington in the Department of Genetics.

Research

In addition to his work in phylogenetics,[8][9][10][11] [12] Felsenstein is also noted for highly influential work in theoretical population genetics, including work on natural selection, migration and gene flow, linkage, speciation, and coalescence models.[13][14][15] Many of the research and statistical methods developed by Felsenstein have become major features and de facto standards in the field of phylogenomics. These include the use of Monte Carlo Markov chains for phylogenomic inference, applying Ronald Fisher's maximum likelihood to phylogenies rather than maximum parsimony[16], pruning algorightms[17], the phylogenetic boostrap,[10] and foundational software packages such as PHYLIP and LAMARC.

His 1985 research paper on bootstrapping in phylogenetics is one of the most cited scientific articles of all time.[18]

Awards

Felsenstein is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal by the Linnean Society of London in 2008. In 2009 he was awarded the John J. Carty Award from the National Academy of Sciences.[19] In 2013 he was awarded the International Prize for Biology by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.[20] He was awarded the Mendel Medal by The Genetics Society in 2026[21] and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in the same year.[22]

The moth species Ufeus felsensteini was named in his honor.

Personal life

Felsenstein is the older brother of early personal computer designer Lee Felsenstein.[23]

An interview covering aspects of his academic career is part of the Distinguished Faculty Interview Series [24] of the Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington.

References

  1. ↑ Joseph Felsenstein at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. ↑ "International Prize for biology | Japan Society for the Promotion of Science". http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-biol/index.html. 
  3. ↑ Felsenstein, J. (1985). "Phylogenies and the Comparative Method". The American Naturalist 125 (1): 1–2. doi:10.1086/284325. Bibcode: 1985ANat..125....1F. 
  4. ↑ Joseph Felsenstein's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (Subscription content?)
  5. ↑ Joseph Felsenstein publications indexed by Google Scholar
  6. ↑ James F. Crow
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Archived copy". http://protist.biology.washington.edu/bio2/people/bio.html?parecID%3D106. 
  8. ↑ Felsenstein, J. (1973). "Maximum Likelihood and Minimum-Steps Methods for Estimating Evolutionary Trees from Data on Discrete Characters". Systematic Biology 22 (3): 240–249. doi:10.1093/sysbio/22.3.240. 
  9. ↑ Felsenstein, J. (1981). "Evolutionary trees from DNA sequences: A maximum likelihood approach". Journal of Molecular Evolution 17 (6): 368–376. PMID 7288891. Bibcode: 1981JMolE..17..368F. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Felsenstein, J. (1982). "Numerical Methods for Inferring Evolutionary Trees". The Quarterly Review of Biology 57 (4): 379–404. doi:10.1086/412935. 
  11. ↑ Felsenstein, Joseph (July 1985). "Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using the bootstrap". Evolution 39 (4): 783–791. doi:10.2307/2408678. PMID 28561359. http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~nzhang/Stat366/Felsenstein85.pdf. 
  12. ↑ Felsenstein, J. (1988). "Phylogenies from Molecular Sequences: Inference and Reliability". Annual Review of Genetics 22: 521–565. doi:10.1146/annurev.ge.22.120188.002513. PMID 3071258. 
  13. ↑ Felsenstein, J., and B. Taylor, eds. 1973. A Bibliography of Theoretical Population Genetics. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Technical Information Center, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
  14. ↑ Felsenstein, J. 2004. Inferring Phylogenies. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Mass.
  15. ↑ Felsenstein, J. 2005. Theoretical Evolutionary Genetics (free ebook)
  16. ↑ Felsenstein, Joseph (1981-11-01). "Evolutionary trees from DNA sequences: A maximum likelihood approach" (in en). Journal of Molecular Evolution 17 (6): 368–376. doi:10.1007/BF01734359. ISSN 1432-1432. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01734359. 
  17. ↑ Hasegawa, Masami; Kishino, Hirohisa; Saitou, Naruya (1991-05-01). "On the maximum likelihood method in molecular phylogenetics" (in en). Journal of Molecular Evolution 32 (5): 443–445. doi:10.1007/BF02101285. ISSN 1432-1432. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02101285. 
  18. ↑ Lemoine, F.; Domelevo Entfellner, J.-B.; Wilkinson, E.; Correia, D.; Dávila Felipe, M.; De Oliveira, T.; Gascuel, O. (April 2018). "Renewing Felsenstein’s phylogenetic bootstrap in the era of big data" (in en). Nature 556 (7702): 452–456. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0043-0. ISSN 1476-4687. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0043-0. 
  19. ↑ "John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science". National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty. 
  20. ↑ "International Prize for biology | Japan Society for the Promotion of Science". http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-biol/index.html. 
  21. ↑ "Mendel Medal 2026 – Professor Joe Felsenstein" (in en-GB). https://genetics.org.uk/medals-and-prizes/genetics-society-medals-and-lectures/mendel-medal/mendel-medal-2026-professor-joe-felsenstein/. 
  22. ↑ "Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society" (in en). 2026-05-27. https://royalsociety.org/news/2026/05/new-fellows-announcement-2026/. 
  23. ↑ Early History of the Personal Computer
  24. ↑ "UW Genome Sciences: Distinguished Faculty Interview Series". http://www.gs.washington.edu/news/interviews/index.htm. 



Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Biography:Joseph_Felsenstein&oldid=4403923"