Francisco J. Ayala

Francisco J. Ayala is University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He was born in Madrid, and studied at the Universities of Madrid and Salamanca in Spain. In 1961, he came to Columbia University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1964 in genetics and evolution. In 1967, he was appointed assistant professor at Rockefeller University in New York. He moved in 1971 to the University of California, Davis, and in 1987 to the University of California, Irvine where he is professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the School of Biological Sciences, as well as Professor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities, and of Logic and Philosophy of Science in the School of Social Sciences. He is a prolific author or articles and books, and has made singular contributions to many areas of population and evolutionary genetics, but also to education, philosophy, ethics, religion and national science policy. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The American Philosophical Society, and of numerous foreign academies. He has received numerous medals, awards and prizes and 15 honorary degrees from universities in seven different countries. In 2002, President George W. Bush awarded him the National Medal of Science at the White House. He has been called the “Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology” by The New York Times.