Scott M. Lanyon

Scott Merrill Lanyon (born July 17, 1956 in Tucson , Arizona ) is an American ornithologist . His main research interests are the starlings (Icteridae).

Life

Scott Lanyon is the son of ornithologist Wesley Edwin Lanyon (1926-2017), who was President of the American Ornithologists' Union from 1976 to 1978 . In 1972, 1973 and 1974 Lanyon accompanied his father on ornithological excursions to Peru , Colombia and Venezuela . In 1977 he received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the State University of New York (SUNY). From September 1978 to May 1980 he was a teaching assistant at Indiana University , where he graduated in July 1980 with a Master of Arts in zoology and ecology. From January 1981 to December 1983 he was a teaching assistant at Louisiana State University and from September 1982 to May 1984 he was a curatorial assistant in the bird department of the Natural History Museum at Louisiana State University. In 1985 he was with the dissertation Biochemical Systematics of the Tyrannoidea (Aves) (Electrophoresis, Jackknifing, Phylogenetic Trees, Consensus Methods) led by V. James Remsen at Louisiana State University for Ph.D. PhD.

Lanyon conducts research in the field of bird systematics. With the help of DNA sequence data, he and his colleagues have developed an understanding of the evolutionary relationships between families, genera and bird species and used this knowledge to elucidate the evolutionary processes that are responsible for behavior and morphological patterns. His main interest is in the starling family (Icteridae), which he writes about in the Tree of Life Web Project . In 1990, Scott Lanyon, together with Douglas F. Stotz and David E. Willard, described the Mato-Grosso-ground ant shrike ( Clytoctantes atrogularis ).

From 1985 to 1995, Lanyon was a curator in the bird department of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago . For the use of biochemical techniques, he founded a laboratory that is known today as the Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and is used by researchers from all museum departments, by many local and international doctoral students and by employees of the Field Museum. In connection with his research, he compiled a collection of tissues that now contains over 60,000 specimens from approximately 2,600 species. Lanyon's fieldwork took him to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, the West Indies, and the Marshall Islands. Lanyon initiated efforts to digitize the bird collection catalog and expanded the Field Museum's avian division's involvement in graduate programs at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In 1995, he became a faculty member in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota , which he directed from 2008 to 2016. From 1995 to 2008 he was director of the James Ford Bell of Museum Natural History at the University of Minnesota.

From 2014 to 2016, Scott Lanyon was President of the American Ornithologists' Union. This was the first time a family member of a previous president had been elected to head this organization.

In April 2016, Lanyon was named vice provost and dean of graduate education at the University of Minnesota.

Lanyon has been married since 1981. He has two daughters.

literature

• Scott M. Lanyon: Biochemical Systematics of the Tyrannoidea (Aves) (Electrophoresis, Jackknifing, Phylogenetic Trees, Consensus Methods) , dissertation at Louisiana State University, 1985 (with curriculum vitae)

Web links

• Biography at Prabook
• New Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Education
• Vice Provost & Dean of Graduate Education Scott Lanyon