Join us for a talk with Professor Richard Prum as he explores the evolution of birds, flowers, skunks and butterflies as an aesthetic process that results in features that function through subjective evaluation and choice. Studying the co-evolution of displays and preferences supports a co-evolutionary framework for aesthetic philosophy with productive insights into the nature of art, art history, and aesthetic change.
About the speaker
Professor Richard Prum
William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology (Ornithology) Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
Rick Prum is William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the Curator of Ornithology and Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology in the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. He has previously served as Chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (2008-2011). He graduated from Harvard University and received his PhD from the University of Michigan, AnnArbour.
Professor Prum is an evolutionary ornithologist with broad interests in avian biology. He has done research on diverse topics, including avian phylogenetics, behavioural evolution, feather evolution and development, sexual selection and mate choice, sexual conflict, aesthetic evolution, avian color vision, structural color, carotenoid pigmentation, evolution of avian plumage coloration, historical biogeography, avian mimicry, and the theropod dinosaur origin of birds. He has conducted field work throughout the Neotropics and in Madagascar, and has studied fossil theropods in China. His recent research has focused on theoretical and molecular studies of the development and evolution of feathers, developing and applying new tools for the study of the physics and evolution of structural coloration, and continued efforts in phylogenetic ethology of polygynous birds
Professor Prum is currently the Director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities, which is a new initiative at Yale University that aims to foster communication, mutual understanding, collaborative research and teaching among diverse scientific and humanistic disciplines.
About the moderator
Professor David M. Post
Professor of Science (Life Sciences); Vice President (Academic Affairs); Dean of Faculty; Visiting Wong Ngit Liong Professor, Yale-NUS College
David M. Post is the Vice President (Academic Affairs), Dean of Faculty, and Visiting Wong Ngit Liong Professor at Yale-NUS College. Professor Post earned his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and his PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University. He conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. He joined the faculty of Yale University in 2002 where he is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Professor Post is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. He is a recipient of the 2003 IRPE Prize, which is given to a young ecologist (<40 yrs) who has published uniquely independent, original and/or challenging research representing an important scientific breakthrough, and the 2002 Raymond L. Lindeman Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography for an outstanding paper by a young (<35 yrs) aquatic scientist (for Post et al. 2000. Nature 405:1047-1049).
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