Wen-Hsiung Li | |
---|---|
Born | Wen Hsiung Li September 22, 1942 Pingtung, Taiwan |
Citizenship | Taiwanese-American |
Nationality | Taiwanese |
Fields |
Mathematics Genetics Evolutionary Biology Genomics |
Institutions |
University of Chicago Academia Sinica University of Texas University of Wisconsin-Madison |
Alma mater |
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA National Central University, Taiwan Chung-Yuang College of Science and Engineering, Taiwan |
Thesis | Mathematical Studies On Mutational Damages In Finite Populations (1972) |
Doctoral advisor | Wendell Fleming |
Other academic advisors | Masatoshi Nei |
Known for |
Male-Driven Evolution Molecular clock Genomics |
Notable awards |
Balzan Prize for Genetics and Evolution (2003) Mendel Medal (2009) |
Website pondside Wen Hsiung Li Profile at Academia Sinica |
Wen-Hsiung Li (Traditional Chinese:李文雄, 1942-) is a Taiwanese American scientist working in the fields of molecular evolution, population genetics, and genomics. He is currently the James Watson Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Information Science and Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
Li was born in 1942 in Taiwan. In 1968 he received a M.S. in geophysics from National Central University. In 1972 he received his Ph.D in applied mathematics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. From 1972 to 1973 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison (genetics), working with James F. Crow. In 1973 he moved to the University of Texas, where he was appointed as a professor in 1984. Since 1998 he has been a professor at The University of Chicago.
Professor Li is best known for his studies on the molecular clock (i.e. rates and patterns of DNA sequence evolution) and on the patterns and consequences of gene duplication.
In 2003, he received the international Balzan Prize for his contribution to genetics and evolutionary biology, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, who cited his role in "establishing theoretical foundations for molecular phylogenetics and evolutionary genomics"[1]. He is the author of the first texts in the field of molecular evolution, Molecular Evolution and Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution (co-authored with Dan Graur), and an author on more than 200 peer-reviewed publications.