BIOGRAPHY

About Sean B. Carroll

Sean B. Carroll is an award-winning scientist, author, educator, and film producer. He is Distinguished University Professor and the Andrew and Mary Balo and NIcholas and Susan Simon Chair of Biology at the University of Maryland, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was formerly Head of HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, and led the Department of Science Education from 2010-2023. He is also Professor Emeritus of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin.

An internationally-recognized evolutionary biologist, Carroll's laboratory research has centered on the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. In recognition of his scientific contributions, Carroll has received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences, been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and elected an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization.

A prominent science communicator in print, on radio, and on film, Carroll is the author of A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You (Princeton University Press), The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters (Princeton University Press), Brave Genius: A Scientist, A Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize (Crown, Random House), Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species, which was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for non-fiction (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), The Making of the Fittest (2006, W.W. Norton) and of Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo (2005, W.W. Norton). He also wrote a regular feature "Remarkable Creatures" for the New York Times Science Times. For his many literary contributions, Sean received Rockefeller University's Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science in 2016.

Carroll has served as executive producer or executive in charge of thirty documentary films or series including the Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated and Sundance Grand Jury- and Cannes L’Oeil d’Or Award winning All That Breathes (2022), the Emmy-winning The Serengeti Rules (2019; based on his book), the Emmy-winning The Farthest (2017), the Emmy-nominated and Golden Panda-winning My Garden of a Thousand Bees (2021), Oliver Sacks: His Own Life (2020), Rise of the Mammals (2019), Backyard Wilderness (2018), Amazon Adventure (2017), The Lucky Specials (2017), Spillover: Zika, Ebola & Beyond (2016), Mass Extinction: Life at the Brink (2014) and Your Inner Fish (2014), as well as approximately twenty short films. He has received two Emmys and four Emmy nominations.

Carroll is also author of the student texts The Story of Life (2018, W.W. Norton and Co.), Into The Jungle: Great Adventures in the Search for Evolution (2008, Pearson, Benjamin Cummings), co-author with Jen Grenier and Scott Weatherbee of the textbook From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design (2nd ed, 2005; Blackwell Scientific) and with Anthony Griffiths, Susan Wessler, and John Doebley of the textbook Introduction to Genetic Analysis (10e, 2011, W.H. Freeman and Co.).

For his educational contributions, Carroll has received the Stephen Jay Gould Prize for the advancement of the public understanding of evolution from the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Distinguished Service Award of the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Award from the Society for Developmental Biology. and numerous honorary lectureships. Carroll was named one of America's most promising leaders under 40 by TIME Magazine in 1994.

He earned his B.A. in Biology at Washington University in St. Louis (1979), his Ph.D. in Immunology at Tufts Medical School (1983), and carried out his postdoctoral research with Dr. Matthew Scott at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He has received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Minnesota (2009) and from Tufts University (2017).

Sean lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland with his wife Jamie.