Theo Michael Schmitt

"Theo" Michael Schmitt (born December 5, 1949 in Albertshofen ) is a German biologist .

career

Schmitt grew up in rural Obersteinach in the Hohenlohe region, attended high school near Sankt Michael in Schwäbisch Hall in 1960, moved to Dettenhausen (Tübingen district) in the same year and graduated from Uhland high school in Tübingen in 1968 , and studied biology from the 1970 summer semester of the University of Tübingen . In the following winter semester he switched to the Free University of Berlin , where he studied biology and sociology . In 1976 he passed his diploma in biology with a thesis on the social behavior of squirrel monkeys .

In 1982 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the evolution of the chirp beetle (Criocerinae). From 1983 to 1989 Schmitt was a university assistant at the Institute for Zoology at the University of Freiburg and from 1990 to 1992 freelancer at the Herder Freiburg publishing house , where he edited volume 10 of the Herder Lexicon of Biology Biology at a Glance .

In 1992 Schmitt was also a research associate at the Baden State Association for Natural History and Nature Conservation in Freiburg.

From October 1992 he was a curator in the Coleoptera section , head of the entomology department and second deputy director at the Alexander Koenig Zoological Research Museum in Bonn . In 1993 he completed his habilitation at the University of Freiburg. From 1994 he was a private lecturer at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, where he was appointed adjunct professor in 2001 .

In 2009 he became a research assistant at the Zoological Institute and Museum of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald in the Department of General and Systematic Zoology. In 2010 he was appointed adjunct professor there, and has been retired since 2015.

From 1995 he was Managing Editor, from 2004 to 2007 Editor-in-Chief of the Zoological Scoreboard . From 2002 to 2009 he was editor of the Bonn zoological contributions . During this time (2004 to 2008) he was also a member of the board of directors of the International Society of Zoological Sciences. From June 2015 to June 2019 he was chairman of the German Society for the History and Theory of Biology .

Main research areas

Schmitt's research focuses on phylogenetic systematics , evolutionary biology , coleopterology , functional morphology and the history of science . For the latter, he worked on a biography of Willi Hennig and the history of phylogenetic systematics, among other things . Other projects deal with leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae), seed beetles (Bruchinae) and longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae), especially their taxonomy, phylogeny, functional morphology and reproductive biology.

Web link

• Homepage of the Department of General & Systematic Zoology, University of Greifswald