Alan Grafen is a Scottish

ethologist Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objectiv ...

and

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

. He currently teaches and undertakes research at

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pr ...

. Along with regular contributions to scientific journals, Grafen is known publicly for his work as co-editor (with Mark Ridley) of the 2006

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...

'' Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think'', honouring the achievements of his colleague and former academic advisor. He has worked extensively in the field of biological

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...

, and, in 1990, devised a model showing that Zahavi's well-known handicap principle could theoretically exist in natural populations. He also published a seminal paper in the field of

phylogenetic comparative methods Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) use information on the historical relationships of lineages (phylogenies) to test evolutionary hypotheses. The comparative method has a long history in evolutionary biology; indeed, Charles Darwin used diffe ...

, in which he demonstrated how the tools of

generalized least squares In statistics, generalized least squares (GLS) is a technique for estimating the unknown parameters in a linear regression model when there is a certain degree of correlation between the residuals in a regression model. In these cases, ordinar ...

could be applied to perform phylogenetically informed statistical analyses. Grafen was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

in 2011.

Bibliography

References

Living people People from Dollar, Clackmannanshire Fellows of St John's College, Oxford Ethologists Evolutionary biologists Scottish biologists Fellows of the Royal Society Year of birth missing (living people) {{Scotland-biologist-stub