David Jablonski


David Ira Jablonski is an American professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago. His research focuses upon the ecology and biogeography of the origin of major novelties, the evolutionary role of mass extinctions—in particular the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event—and other large-scale processes in the history of life.
Jablonksi is a proponent of the extended evolutionary synthesis.

Education

Jablonski was educated at Columbia University and completed his graduate work at Yale University. As an undergraduate he worked at the American Museum of Natural History in the City of New York, NY. Then continued postdoctoral research at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1985 he was hired by the University of Chicago.

Awards

In 1988 the Paleontological Society awarded Jablonski with the Charles Schuchert Award, which is given to persons under 40 "whose work reflects excellence and promise in paleontology". In 2010 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
In 2017 the Paleontological Society awarded him their most prestigious prize, the Paleontological Society Medal