Blair Hedges
Professor of biology
619 MuellerHonors and Awards:
- Faculty Scholar Medal, Penn State, 2011
- Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2009
- Science News of the Year, Life, Science News Magazine, 2008
- Faculty Associates Teaching Award, Penn State, 1997
Research Interests:
Our research explores connections between biological evolution and Earth history in all organisms and time periods. Because time itself is of great utility in drawing these connections, we often use molecular clocks in combination with morphology, phylogeny, geology, and the fossil record to uncover historical patterns and reveal the mechanisms of change. We study, among other topics, speciation, adaptive radiation, lineage diversification, historical biogeography, and mass extinction. Of particular interest are global changes in the planetary environment such as continental breakup, climate change, and extraterrestrial impacts and their effect on the evolution of life. Research topics in the lab have included the early evolution of life, vertebrate evolution, historical biogeography, primate evolution, and biodiversity and conservation. A large component of our work is computational (bioinformatics), involving the analysis of sequence data from many genes or complete genomes. Another component involves field work and collection of new DNA sequences as needed for particular questions.
Selected Publications:
Hoffman, M. et al. 2010. The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates. Science 330: 1503-1509.
Hedges, S. B. and S. Kumar (Eds.). 2009. The timetree of life. Oxford University Press, New York. 551 p.
Heinicke, M. P., W. E. Duellman, and S. B. Hedges. 2007. Major Caribbean and Central American frog faunas originated by ancient oceanic dispersal. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 10092-10097.
Hedges, S. B. 2006. A method for dating early books and prints using image analysis. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences 462: 3555-3573.
Fry, B. G., N. Vidal, J. A. Norman, F. J. Vonk, H. Scheib, R. Ramjan, S. Kuruppu, K. Fung, S. B. Hedges, M. K. Richardson, W. C. Hodgson, V. Ignjatovic, R. Summerhayes, and E. Kochva. 2006. Early evolution of the venom system in lizards and snakes. Nature 439: 584-588.
Kumar, S., A. Filipski, V. Swarna, A. Walker, and S. B. Hedges. 2005. Placing confidence limits on the molecular age of the human-chimpanzee divergence. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102: 18842-18847.
Hedges, S. B. 2003. The coelacanth of frogs. Nature 425: 669-670. (Champagne Writing Award for best News & Views 2003).
Hedges, S. B. 2002. The origin and evolution of model organisms. Nature Reviews Genetics 3: 838-849.
Hedges, S. B. and S. Kumar. 2002. Vertebrate genomes compared. Science 297: 1283-1285.
Heckman, D. S., D. M. Geiser, B. R. Eidell, R. L. Stauffer, N. L. Kardos, and S. B. Hedges. 2001. Molecular evidence for the early colonization of land by fungi and plants. Science 293: 1129-1133.
