#  2026 Prather Lecture Series: Neil H. Shubin 

 



    ![Man with beard and glasses wearing black vest and white shirt smiling](/sites/g/files/omnuum6811/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-10/Neil%20H%20Shubin.jpeg?itok=_ah_hqko) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **April 16, 2026** 

 03:30PM - 04:30PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Northwest Building B103, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA**  



 

 



 

[Neil H. Shubin](https://news.uchicago.edu/profile/neil-shubin)  
Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, The University of Chicago   
President-Elect, National Academy of Sciences

*The Origin of Walking*

**Abstract:** Walking in tetrapods originally arose in fish living in aquatic ecosystems. The origin of fish walking is related to the origin of new fluvial environments in the Devonian, modification of primitive skeletal features and neural circuits, and energetic costs of fish swimming at slow speeds. New fossil discoveries, coupled with an analysis of diverse fish gaits in living and robotic systems, reveals that the most primitive gaits likely involved axial bending with stable appendages. Locomotion, deploying using mobile limbs for propulsion and control, was a relatively late addition to this primitive program.

The Prather Lecture Series is co-hosted by OEB and MCB.



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Prather Lecture Series ](/event-type/prather-lecture-series)
 
 

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