Lynne R. Parenti (born 1954) is an American

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

. She serves as a Research Scientist and Curator of Fishes at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. Her specialty is the systematics and historical biogeography of freshwater and coastal fishes, and she has conducted research in this area for about thirty years.

Early life and education

Parenti was born in Manhattan, New York, grew up in Staten Island. She earned her B.S. in Biological Sciences from the

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

in 1975 and her Ph.D in Biology through a joint program between the

Graduate Center of the City University of New York The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the ...

and the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

in 1980.

Career

Parenti has written, spoken and conducted research in the areas of

systematics Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic tre ...

, phylogeny and

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

of tropical freshwater and coastal marine fishes, comparative teleost anatomy, development and reproduction, and theory and methods of historical biogeography. She has led expeditions in Papua New Guinea, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, China, Taiwan, Sulawesi, Hawaii, Tasmania, and New Zealand. She has been the principal investigator of several National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. Among other work, her research has led to biological reclassification of Killfish. In 1995, Parenti became a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club. In 2005, she was the first woman ichthyologist to be President of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.

Publications

Parenti has written more than 100 peer-reviewed articles published in scientific journals including Science (journal), ''Science''. Many of her articles are highly cited. She has also written four books, including ''Cladistic Biogeography — Interpreting Patterns of Plant and Animal Distributions'', for which a second edition was published in 1999."Book Review:Cladistic Biogeography — Interpreting Patterns of Plant and Animal Distributions (2nd edn)"
''Heredity'' (1999) 83, 501–501; doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6886243 Her most recent book, ''Comparative Biogeography: Discovering and Classifying Biogeographical Patterns of a Dynamic Earth'' (2009, University of California Press), was recognized in 2010 as the Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize Winner.

Honors and awards

She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Honorary Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, and Honorary member of the Indonesian Ichthyological Society. In 2005, she was a Distinguished Lecturer in the Petrus Artedi Tricentennial Symposium on Ichthyology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parenti, Lynne R. 1954 births Living people 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers American ichthyologists Women ichthyologists American science writers People from Manhattan Stony Brook University alumni CUNY Graduate Center alumni Scientists from New York City Smithsonian Institution people Biologists from New York (state)

Early life and education

Career

Publications

Honors and awards

See also

References