Scott V. Edwards
Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology,
Curator of Ornithology,
Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology
in the Museum of Comparative Zoology
Phone: 617-384-8082
E-mail:
Office: 306 MCZ , 26 Oxford St
Lab Website: http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/edwards/index.html
We study the evolutionary biology of birds and relatives, combining field, museum and genomics approaches to understand the basis of avian diversity, evolution and behavior. Our guiding approaches include population genetics, which provides a quantitative framework for studying speciation, geographic variation and genome evolution; systematics, which acknowledges that the focal species of any study has relatives that are behaviorally and ecologically no less interesting; and natural history, which gives meaning to the genes and genomic patterns we study.
Recent Publications
Edwards, S. V. 2009. Is a new and general theory of molecular systematics emerging? Evolution, in press.
Bonneaud, C., Burnside, J., and S. V. Edwards. 2008. High-speed developments in avian genomics. Bioscience. 58: 587-595.
Causey, D., and S. V. Edwards. 2008. Ecology of avian influenza virus in birds. Journal of Infectious Disease 197 Suppl 1:S29-33.
Alcaide, M., S. V. Edwards, J. J. Negro, D. Serrano, and J. L. Tella. 2008. Extensive polymorphism and geographical variation at a positively selected MHC class II B gene of the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni). Molecular Ecology 17: 2652-2665.
Brito, P. and Edwards, S. V. 2008. Multilocus phylogeography and phylogenetics using sequence-based markers. Genetica DOI10.1007/s10709-008-9293-3.
Liu, L., D. K. Pearl, R. T. Brumfield, S. V. Edwards. 2008. Estimating species trees using multiple-allele DNA sequence data. Evolution. 62: 2080-2091.
Organ, C., A. Shedlock, A. Meade, M. Pagel, and S. V. Edwards. 2007. Origin of avian genome size and structure in non-avian dinosaurs. Nature 446: 180-184.
See complete publications list. 
Courses Taught
OEB 125. Molecular Ecology and Evolution
OEB 190. Biology and Diversity of Birds
OEB 275r. Frontiers of Evolutionary Biology (course head)
