Barbara Rosemary Grant on site researching birds in 2007.

Barbara Rosemary Grant was born in Arnside, England in 1936. She grew up enjoying the diversity of her surroundings; she collected plant fossils and compared them to living look-alikes. At age 12, she read Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Despite what teachers told her at school, she was destined to go to university to obtain a degree[1]. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in Zoology in 1960.

For the next year, she studied genetics under Conrad Waddington. She then devised a dissertation to study isolated populations of fish, this was put on hold when she accepted a biology teaching job at the University of British Columbia, [1] where she met Peter Grant.[2]

They are both evolutionary biologist at Princeton University and each hold the position of emeritus professor. They are known for there research conducted on Darwin's finches on Daphne Major, one of the Galápagos Islands. Together the couple spent six months of every year capturing, tagging, and taking blood samples from finches on the island. They have worked to show that natural selection can be seen within a single lifetime, or even within a couple of years. Charles Darwin originally thought that natural selection was a long, drawn out process. The Grants have shown that these changes in populations can happen very quickly.

Academic Career

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  • BSc (Hons), University of Edinburgh, 1960
  • PhD (Evolutionary Biology), Uppsala University, 1985
  • Research Associate, Yale University, 1964
  • Research Associate, McGill University, 1973
  • Research Associate, University of Michigan, 1977
  • Research Scholar and lecturer, Princeton University, 1985
  • Senior Research Scholar with rank of Professor, Princeton University, 1997
  • Senior Research Scholar with rank of Professor Emeritus, Princeton University, 2008

Research

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While attending Edinburgh Grant studied genetics for a year with Conrad Waddington. While working with Waddington she worked on discovering immunological methods that can find difference on the surface proteins of cells between pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains of soil amoebas.[1]

She then devised a dissertation to study isolated populations of fish. This was put on hold when she accepted a biology teaching job at the University of British Columbia.[1]

Societies:

  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • Charles Darwin Foundation
  • American Society of Naturalists
  • Royal Society of Canada
  • Royal Society of London
  • American Philosophical Society

Honorary Degrees:

  • McGill University, 2002
  • Universidad San Francisco, Quito, 2005
  • University of Zurich, 2008
  • University of Toronto, 2017

Honorary citizen of Puerto Bacquerizo, I. San Cristobal, Galapagos- 2005–

Since 2010, she has been honored annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution with the Rosemary Grant Graduate Student Research Award competition, which supports early stage PhD students to increase their research past current funding.[3]

 
Barbara Rosemary Grant and her husband Peter Grant.

Joint Research With Peter Grant

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Research Summary

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With her husband Peter Grant they have done a few different research efforts. They changed the observation put forth of Charles Darwin that natural selection can not be seen in one lifetime. They have decades long studies and to read the full details visit Peter Grant's page under the heading Joint Research With Barbara Rosemary Grant.

Achievements Received Jointly

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Books Published

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  • Evolutionary Dynamics of a Natural Population: Large Cactus Finch of the Galapagos – Rosemary & Peter Grant – (University of Chicago Press, 1989) ISBN 978-0-226-30590-5 (Received the Wildlife Publication Award, Wildlife Society, 1991)
  • How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin’s Finches – Peter & Rosemary Grant – (Princeton University Press,2008/2011) ISBN 978-0-691-14999-8
  • 40 Years of Evolution: Darwin's Finches on Daphne Major Island – Peter & Rosemary Grant – (Princeton University Press,2014) ISBN 978-0-691-16046-7

The Grants research is included in The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), ISBN 0-679-40003-6, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1995.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Nair, Prashant (2011-07-26). "Profile of B. Rosemary Grant". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (30): 12195–12197. doi:10.1073/pnas.1108575108. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3145685. PMID 21690341.
  2. ^ Ahmed, Farooq (2010-03-30). "Profile of Peter R. Grant". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (13): 5703–5705. doi:10.1073/pnas.1001348107. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 20339083.
  3. ^ "Society for the Study of Evolution". www.evolutionsociety.org. Retrieved 2021-05-21.
  4. ^ "Barbara Rosemary Grant | Kyoto Prize". 京都賞. Retrieved 2021-05-21.
  5. ^ "- Fondazione Internazionale Balzan". web.archive.org. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2021-05-21.