Bernard Joseph Crespi is an American professor of
evolutionary biology
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 fo ...
at
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, Canada. His research focuses on
social evolution
{{unreferenced, date=February 2015
''Social Evolution'' is the title of an essay by Benjamin Kidd, which became available as a book published by Macmillan and co London in 1894. In it, Kidd discusses the basis for society as an evolving phenomenon ...
across multiple scales, using genetic and ecological approaches. He is one of the initiators of the
imprinted brain hypothesis.
In 2010, he was elected as a fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
.
Career
After earning his PhD and conducting postdoctoral work in Europe, Crespi joined the faculty at
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
in 1992. In 2006, he was the recipient of a Killam Research Fellowship.
![Bernard Crespi 2016](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Bernard_Crespi_2016.jpg)
In 2008, Crespi published a paper describing observed patterns of imprinting in humans and other organisms. He explained that
Genomic imprinting is an
epigenetic
In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "o ...
process by which certain
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
s are expressed in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. The imprinted brain theory is a variant of the
conflict theory of imprinting which argues that in
diploid
Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...
organisms, such as humans, the maternal and paternal set of genes may have antagonistic reproductive interests since the mother and father may have antagonistic interests regarding the development of the child.
Following this, he was named a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
.
In 2013, Crespi and fellow UMich alumni
Kyle Summers co-edited "''Human Social Evolution, The Foundational Works of Richard D. Alexander,''" which was published through the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
.
In 2016, Crespi won SFU's Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for his evolutionary biology research. The next year, he conducted a study with
Gerhard Gries
Gerhard J. Gries (born 1955; Duderstadt, Germany) is a full professor of Animal Communication Ecology at the Department of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University.
Education and career
Gries graduated from the Duderstadt Gymnasium in 1974. ...
, and
Regine Gries to study the effect of natural selection on stick insects and mating. He was also selected as a Tier 1
Canada Research Chair
Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program.
Program goals
The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...
in Evolutionary Genetics and Psychology.
References
External links
*
NYT article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crespi, Bernard
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Evolutionary biologists
Simon Fraser University faculty
Canada Research Chairs