In 2008-2009, The Ohio State University, in partnership with other higher education institutions and community organizations, hosts a celebration of science to highlight the importance of evolutionary studies to our understanding of the history of our planet, to the health of humans, and to the future of the biosphere that is confronted with unprecedented global climatic change.
COMING THIS FALL...
In partnership with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, the final event in the
Darwin: The Growth of an Idea series will feature Darwin scholar Tim M.
Berra. Following the lecture, he will sign copies of his new book, "Charles
Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man."
Berra is Professor Emeritus of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at
Ohio State. He received two Fulbright Fellowships to Australia in 1969 and
1979. He taught at the University of Papua New Guinea before joining the
faculty of OSU in 1972. Over the last 40 years he has spent over eight years
doing fieldwork in Australia.
Berra is the author of over 75 scientific papers and six books including
"Evolution and the Myth of Creationism" published by Stanford University
Press in 1990. His book, "A Natural History of Australia" (Univ. of NSW
Press/Academic Press, 1998), features 200 of his color photographs; 220 line
drawings and maps; and over 500 references. His most recent book, "Charles
Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man," was published by Johns
Hopkins University Press in November 2008 and features 60 b/w illustrations
and 16 color plates.
Berra is the former editor of "The Ohio Journal of Science" and was a member
of the Board of Trustees of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium where he also
served on the Conservation and Collection Management Committee. He was also
the ichthyological book review editor of "Copeia," the journal of the
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and a member of the
Board of Governors of the Society. Berra resigned these positions at the end
of 2000 to pursue fieldwork supported by the National Geographic Society and
the Columbus Zoo in Australia in 2001. He is Research Associate at the
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, Australia where
he spent most of 2001 working on the life history of the nurseryfish. He
returned to Darwin in 2003, 2004, and 2005 to continue his nurseryfish
research, and he will be keynoting Charles Darwin University's celebrations
of the Darwin bicentennial in 2009.
In 1992 he was visiting professor at the University of Concepcion in Chile,
and in 1996 he was visiting professor at the University of Otago in New
Zealand. He took early retirement from Ohio State University in July 1995
to devote full time to research, writing, and photography.
Event Details:
Fawcett Center
7 p.m. Lecture
Tickets $10; find ticket information here.