Biography
About Sean B. Carroll
Sean B. Carroll is an award-winning scientist, author, and educator. He is currently Vice President for Science Education of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the largest private supporter of science education activities in the US, and Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin. His research has centered on the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. Major discoveries from his laboratory have been featured in TIME, US News & World Report, The New York Times, Discover, and Natural History.
Sean is the author of Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (2009, 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 writes a monthly feature "Remarkable Creatures" for the New York Times Science Times.
Sean is also author of the student text 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.). He is also the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific papers.
Sean is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science, National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Shaw Scientist Award of the Milwaukee Foundation, the Stephen Jay Gould Prize for promoting the public understanding of evolution, the Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize, the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers, and numerous honorary lectureships. Sean 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, his Ph.D. in Immunology at Tufts Medical School, and carried out his postdoctoral research with Dr. Matthew Scott at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Minnesota in 2009.
Sean lives in Madison, Wisconsin and Bethesda, Maryland with his wife Jamie.