John Wiens

John J. Wiens is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.  Prior to coming to Arizona in 2013, he was Associate and Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University in New York (2003–2012) and before that was a curator of herpetology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh (1995–2002).  He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin (1995), and his B.S. (summa cum laude) at the University of Kansas (1991).  He grew up in Colorado.  He has served as an Associate Editor for several journals in ecology and evolution (e.g. American Naturalist, Ecography, Ecology Letters, Evolution, Systematic Biology) and as Editor-in-Chief of the Quarterly Review of Biology.  He is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher and a winner of the President’s Award of the American Society of Naturalists.  He has published >200 scientific papers.  He studies many questions in ecology and evolutionary biology, and especially the origins of biodiversity patterns and the impacts of climate change.  Major research questions include: (1) how many species exist on Earth? (2) why do different groups of organisms have different numbers of species? (3) why do different habitats and regions differ in species richness? (4) how will climate change impact biodiversity in the future?  He is also interested in the biology of reptiles and amphibians, phylogeny, speciation, sexual selection, species interactions, and niche evolution.