Peter William Harold Holland (born 17 August 1963) is a zoologist whose research focuses on how the evolution of animal diversity can be explained through evolution of the genome. He is the current Linacre Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...

Life and career

After graduating in Zoology from

The Queen's College The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, in 1984 and obtaining a doctorate in genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research in 1987, Peter Holland held a series of research posts including a

Royal Society University Research Fellowship __NOTOC__ The Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) is a research fellowship awarded to outstanding early career scientists in the United Kingdom who are judged by the Royal Society to have the potential to become leaders in their fi ...

. He become Professor of Zoology at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in 1994 at the age of 30. In 2002 he was elected as a Fellow of

Merton College Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...

and appointed as the 11th Linacre Professor of Zoology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where he was head of the Department of Zoology from 2011 to 2016. He was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2003. Peter Holland was a Trustee of the

Marine Biological Association The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) is a learned society with a scientific laboratory that undertakes research in marine biology. The organisation was founded in 1884 and has been based in Plymouth since the Citadel H ...

from 1998 to 2018, and Research Committee Chair. He became a Trustee of the

Earlham Institute Earlham Institute (EI, formerly The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC)) is a life science research institute located at the Norwich Research Park (NRP), Norwich, England. EI's research is focused on exploring living systems by applying computation ...

in 2019 and became chair of the board of trustees in 2022.

Publications

* ''Essential Developmental Biology'', 1993 (as co-editor) * ''The Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms'', 1994 (as joint editor) * ''The Animal Kingdom: A Very Short Introduction'', 2011. Also published in Japanese in 2014 under the titl
動物たちの世界六億年の進化をたどる
(The world of animals: tracing 600 million years of evolution), and in Arabic in 2016 a
المملكة الحيوانية: مقدمة قصيرة جدًّا

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holland, Peter English zoologists 1963 births Living people Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Academics of the University of Reading Fellows of Merton College, Oxford 20th-century British zoologists 21st-century British zoologists