Richard Lenski

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
John Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbial Ecology, and Co-Principal Investigator in the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University

EDUCATION:
- BA Oberlin College (USA)
- PhD University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA)

MEMBERSHIPS:
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)
- Fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences (USA)
- Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (USA)

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
I am broadly interested in evolutionary biology, especially in understanding the genomic and ecological processes that drive evolutionary change. To that end (and unlike most evolution studies that use comparative methods), we perform experiments to observe evolution in action and thereby test hypotheses with replicated populations under defined conditions. My long-term evolution experiment with E. coli started in 1988 and has passed 55,000 generations. Focal questions there concern the tempo, mode, and reproducibility of evolution in terms of both genomic and phenotypic changes.

HOME PAGE
http://www.msu.edu/~lenski/