Stephen C. Stearns

Stephen C. Stearns (born December 12, 1946)^[1] is an American biologist, and the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Emeritus at Yale University. He is known for his work in life history theory and evolutionary medicine.^[2]

Stephen C. Stearns
Born	December 12, 1946 (1946-12-12) (age 78) Kapaau, Hawaii, United States
Alma mater	Yale University, University of Wisconsin, University of British Columbia
Known for	Life history evolution, evolutionary medicine
Spouse	Beverly Peterson Stearns
Children	Justin K. Stearns, Jason Stearns
Scientific career
Fields	Evolutionary biology, life history theory, evolutionary medicine
Institutions	Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University
Thesis	A comparison of the evolution and expression of life history traits in stable and fluctuating environments: Gambusia affinis in Hawaii  (1975)
Doctoral students	Dieter Ebert
Website	stearnslab.yale.edu

Early life and education

Stearns was born in Kapaau, Hawaii and raised in Hawi, Hawaii.^[3] After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University in 1967, he received a Master of Science degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1971.^[2] He earned a PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1975 and was awarded a Miller Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley the same year.^[2]

Career

From 1978 to 1983, Stearns served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Reed College.^[4] He then became a Professor of Zoology at the University of Basel, a position he held from 1983 to 2000.^[5] From 1991 to 1998, he was the President of the Tropical Biology Association. From 1994 to 1998, he chaired the European Science Foundation Program in Population Biology. In 1995, he served as Vice President of the Society for the Study of Evolution,^[6] and in 1995-1996, he was Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Basel.^[7] From 2002 to 2005, he chaired the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, where he has been the Edward P. Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology since 2000.^[8]

Investment in Infrastructure

In 1987, Stearns helped to found the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) and later served on its council and as its president.^[9] He founded the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, ESEB's main journal, and served as its first managing editor from 1986 to 1991 before later joining its Editorial Board.^[10] In 1991, he and Tim Clutton-Brock founded the Tropical Biology Association.^[11] In 2013, he founded the online open-access journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health and served five years as its first editor-in-chief.^[12]

Awards and honors

• 1987: Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• 1993: European Chair of Biology at the École normale supérieure, Paris.
• 2000: Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications for a book he wrote with his wife, Beverly Peterson Stearns, Watching, from the Edge of Extinction.
• 2000: Distinguished Ecologist, University of Michigan.
• 2004: Raymond Pearl Memorial Lecturer, Human Biology Association.
• 2005: Fellow, Konrad Lorenz Institute.
• 2005: Fellow, Rockefeller Bellagio Conference and Study Center.
• 2005: Honorary Member of the Swiss Zoological Society.^[13]
• 2007: Fellow, European Society for Evolutionary Biology.^[14]
• 2011: DeVane Medal for distinction in undergraduate teaching, Yale University Phi Beta Kappa.^[15]
• 2011–2012: Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• 2015: Honorary Doctorate, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Zurich.^[16]
• 2021: Yale College Harwood F. Byrnes/Richard B. Sewall Teaching Prize

Selected publications

Books

• The Evolution of Sex and its Consequences (Birkhaeuser 1987) ISBN 978-3-0348-6273-8
• The Evolution of Life Histories (Oxford University Press 1992) ISBN 978-0-19-857741-6
• Evolution in Health and Disease (Oxford University Press 1999, 2nd Ed with Jacob Koella 2007) ISBN 978-0-19-920746-6^[17]
• Watching, from the Edge of Extinction (first author Beverly Peterson Stearns, Yale University Press 1999) ISBN 978-0-300-07606-6^[18][19]
• Evolution, an Introduction (with Rolf Hoekstra, Oxford University Press 2000, 2nd Ed 2005) ISBN 978-0-19-925563-4^[20]
• Evolutionary Medicine (with Ruslan Medzhitov, Sinauer 2016, 2nd edition Oxford University Press 2024) ISBN 978-0192871985

Papers

• Stearns, Stephen C. (1976), "Life-history tactics: A review of the ideas", The Quarterly Review of Biology, 51 (1): 3–47, doi:10.1086/409052, JSTOR 2825234, PMID 778893, S2CID 37813334.
• Stearns, Stephen C. (1977), "The evolution of life history traits: A critique of the theory and a review of the data" (PDF), Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 8: 145–171, doi:10.1146/annurev.es.08.110177.001045, JSTOR 2096724.
• Stearns, Stephen C.; Koella, Jacob C. (1986), "The evolution of phenotypic plasticity in life-history traits: Predictions of reaction norms for age and size at maturity" (PDF), Evolution, 40 (5): 893–913, doi:10.2307/2408752, JSTOR 2408752, PMID 28556219.
• Stearns, Stephen C. (1989), "The evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity", BioScience, 39 (7): 436–445, doi:10.2307/1311135, JSTOR 1311135.
• Stearns, S. C. (1989), "Trade-offs in life-history evolution" (PDF), Functional Ecology, 3 (3): 259–268, Bibcode:1989FuEco...3..259S, doi:10.2307/2389364, JSTOR 2389364.