Kevin Lala | |
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Born | Kevin Neville Lala 5 October 1962 |
Nationality | English |
Other names | Kevin Laland |
Education | University College London (Ph.D., 1990) |
Alma mater | University of Southampton |
Known for | Niche construction theory |
Awards | Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Behavioral biology Evolutionary biology |
Institutions | University of St Andrews |
Thesis | Social transmission in Norway rats and its implications for evolutionary theory (1990) |
Doctoral advisor | Henry Plotkin |
Kevin Neville Lala (formerly Kevin Neville Laland; born 5 October 1962)[1][2] is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College London,[3] he was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the University of St Andrews in 2002. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory[4] and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis.[5] He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Biology. He has also received a European Research Council Advanced Grant,[6] a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award,[7] and a John Templeton Foundation grant.[8] He was the president of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association from 2007 to 2010[9] and a former president of the Cultural Evolution Society.[10] Lala is currently an external faculty of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research.[11]