Marcus W. Feldman

Marcus Feldman is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Biological Sciences and director of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies at Stanford University. He uses applied mathematics and computer modeling to simulate and analyze the process of evolution. His specific areas of research include the evolution of complex genetic systems that can undergo both natural selection and recombination, and the evolution of learning as one interface between modern methods in artificial intelligence and models of biological processes, including communication. He also studies the evolution of modern humans using models for the dynamics of molecular polymorphisms, especially DNA variants. He helped develop the quantitative theory of cultural evolution, which he applies to issues in human behavior, and also the theory of niche construction, which has wide applications in ecology and evolutionary analysis. He also has a large research program on demographic issues related to the gender ratio in China.

Feldman is a trustee and member of the science steering committee of the Santa Fe Institute. He is managing editor of Theoretical Population Biology and associate editor of the journals Genetics; Human Genomics; Complexity; the Annals of Human Genetics; and the Annals of Human Biology. He is a former editor of The American Naturalist. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the California Academy of Science. His work received the "Paper of the Year 2003" award in all of biomedical science from The Lancet. He has written more than 335 scientific papers and four books on evolution, ecology, and mathematical biology. He received a BSc in mathematics and statistics from the University of Western Australia, an MSc in mathematics from Monash University (Australia), and a PhD in mathematical biology from Stanford. He has been a member of the Stanford faculty since 1971.