Harvard Club of Santa Barbara

February 22 dinner/lecture - Dr. Andrew Berry

Dr. Andrew Berry, Lecturer on Organismic & Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, will speak to us on: What Darwin Didn't Know: Evolution since The Origin. Location: Arch Rock Fish Time: 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. Cost: $55

Born in London, Andrew Berry has a degree in zoology from Oxford University and a PhD in evolutionary genetics from Princeton University. He was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and is still at Harvard where he is currently Lecturer on Organismic & Evolutionary Biology.

Combining the techniques of field biology with those of molecular biology, his work has been a search for evidence at the DNA level of Darwinian natural selection. He has published on topics as diverse as Giant Rats in New Guinea, mice on Atlantic islands, aphids from the Far East, and the fruit fly.

At Harvard, he currently co-teaches courses on evolutionary biology (with Hopi Hoekstra), on genetics (with Maryellen Ruvolo and Hopi Hoekstra), on the development of evolutionary thinking (with Janet Browne), and on the physical basis of biological systems (with Logan McCarty and Melissa Franklin). He also teaches a Harvard study abroad summer program based at Queen’s College, Oxford, that combines history of science with a review of current thought in evolutionary biology.

He has additionally taught courses in less predictable venues, like Sabanci University, Istanbul, and the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar. He has given lectures on evolutionary topics to popular audiences all over the world – everywhere from Ankara to the Antarctic.

His non-technical writing has appeared in, among others, Slate, The Independent, and the London Review of Books. He is the editor of a collection of the writings of Alfred Russel Wallace, the Victorian biologist who, with Charles Darwin, co-discovered natural selection (Infinite Tropics, Verso 2002), and the author, with James D. Watson, of an account of the history and impact of modern genetics published to mark the 50th anniversary of Watson & Crick's discovery of the double helix (DNA, Knopf 2003). He has worked in script development for two major television series: "Race, the Power of an Illusion" (3 parts, California Newsreel, PBS 2003); "DNA" (5 parts, Windfall Films, London. Channel 4 2003, PBS 2003).

As an educator and popularizer, his mission is to demystify the most important and most misinterpreted of all biological ideas, evolution.

Members plus up to three guests per member are invited to purchase tickets for this event at $55 by clicking the link below.  HCSB prefers the online method of simultaneously paying and RSVP'ing, as it provides us with an automated attendance count and RSVP list. However, members who prefer to pay by check may do so by mailing their checks together with the names of their guests to Ed Bookin.  Please order soon as space is limited!