Harlan Lewis

Harlan Lewis
Born
Frank Harlan Lewis

(1919-01-08)January 8, 1919
Redlands, California
DiedDecember 12, 2008(2008-12-12) (aged 89)
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
Spouse(s)Margaret Ruth Ensign, August 2, 1945 and August 2, 1984
Ann Gibbons, December 23, 1968
ChildrenDonald Austin Lewis
Frank Murray Lewis
AwardsDean of Life Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles 1962-1981
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1955)
Guggenheim Fellowship (1955)
President of the Pacific Division of the Botanical Society of America (1959)
President of Society for the Study of Evolution (1961)
President of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (1969)
President of the International Organization of Plant Biosystematics (1969-1975)
President of the American Society of Naturalists (1971)
Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
2006 Dickson Emeritus Professor of the Year

Frank Harlan Lewis (January 8, 1919 – December 12, 2008) was an American botanist, geneticist, taxonomist, systematist, and evolutionist who worked primarily with plants in the genus Clarkia. He is best known for his theories of "catastrophic selection" and "saltational speciation", which are closely aligned with the concepts of quantum evolution and sympatric speciation. The concepts were first articulated in 1958 by Lewis and Peter H. Raven,[1] and later refined in a 1962 paper by Lewis[2] in which he coined the term "catastrophic selection". In 1966,[3] he referred to the same mechanism as "saltational speciation".

Lewis was Dean of Life Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1962 to 1981, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1955), recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1955), president of the Pacific Division of the Botanical Society of America (1959), president of the Society for the Study of Evolution (1961), president of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (1969), president of the International Organization of Plant Biosystematics (1969–1975), and president of the American Society of Naturalists (1971), as well as a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. In 2006, he became the Dickson Emeritus Professor of the Year at UCLA.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ Lewis, Harlan; Raven, Peter H. (1958). "Rapid Evolution in Clarkia". Evolution. 12 (3): 319–336. doi:10.2307/2405854. JSTOR 2405854.
  2. ^ Lewis, Harlan (1962). "Catastrophic Selection as a Factor in Speciation". Evolution. 16 (3): 257–271. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.1962.tb03218.x. S2CID 88311196.
  3. ^ Lewis, Harlan (1966). "Speciation in Flowering Plants". Science. 152 (3719): 167–172. Bibcode:1966Sci...152..167L. doi:10.1126/science.152.3719.167. PMID 17741624.
  4. ^ "Harlan Lewis -- In Memoriam".
  5. ^ Gibson, Arthur (2009). "Harlan Lewis, Evolutionary Biologist". Mildred e. Mathias Botanical Garden. 12 (1): 1–4.
  6. ^ Unknown (1996). "Biographical Sketch F. Harlan Lewis". The Jepson Globe. 7 (1): 1–2.