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Duke Biologist Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Mark Rausher to be honored among more than 200 leaders in academia, business, government, and public affairs

Mark Rausher, John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Biology at Duke University
Mark Rausher, John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Biology at Duke University

Duke University biology professor Mark Rausher has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the oldest honorary society in the United States.

Rausher is a leader in evolutionary biology whose work has focused on plant-insect interactions, plant mating systems, speciation, the evolution of metabolic pathways and the genetic basis of adaptation using flower color as a model system.

Rausher joined the Duke faculty in 1978 after earning his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. at Cornell University.

Over the last four decades Rausher has authored or co-authored more than 140 publications, and edited the journals New Phytologist, The American Naturalist, Evolution and Ecology. In 2017 he received the received the Sewall Wright Award from the American Society of Naturalists for his lifetime of achievement in the field of evolution.

Rausher has mentored more than 50 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers, who have worked on organisms ranging from plants and insects to fish and fungi. Over his career he has also been awarded more than $5 million in research funding from the National Science Foundation and other agencies. He currently serves as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution.

Rausher is one of 214 leaders in academia, business, government and public affairs elected to the Academy in 2019. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony in October 2019 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.