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IU biologist Jeffrey Palmer elected to National Academy of Sciences
May 3, 2000
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Jeffrey Palmer, Distinguished Professor of Biology and chairman of the Department of Biology at Indiana University, was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences at its annual meeting Tuesday (May 2). Membership is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist.
Sixty new members and 15 foreign associates from nine countries were elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, according to an announcement by the Academy.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization of scientists established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation signed by Abraham Lincoln. The Academy acts as an official adviser to the federal government in any matter of science or technology.
"Jeffrey Palmer is considered by many to be the world leader in evolutionary genomics, and he has made landmark discoveries in areas as diverse as plant phylogeny and intron evolution. I can think of no one who has contributed more to our understanding of how eukaryotic genomes evolve and interact," said Loren Rieseberg, Class of '54 Professor of Biology at IU.
"Palmer has influenced the fields of plant phylogeny and molecular evolution by training many of the leading practitioners in these areas. He almost singlehandedly created the rapidly growing field of molecular plant systematics. Results from his lab have had a major impact on our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships of the flowering plant subclass Asteridae, the origin of land plants from green algae, and the origin of chloroplasts from cyanobacteria.
"More recently, he has extended his focus to major questions of eukaryotic molecular phylogeny. Important outcomes from this work include the discovery of a surprisingly close relationship of animals and fungi, and the development of search engines for screening databases for particular kinds of mutations that might be phylogenetically informative.
"He discovered the first intron from eubacteria and showed that this is the most ancient intron known, occurring both in plastids and their cyanobacterial ancestors. He has marshaled substantial evidence in favor of the theory that most or all eukaryotic spliceosomal introns are of relatively recent, insertional origin."
Palmer's honors include a Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985, the international David Starr Jordan Prize in 1990, a Special Creativity grant extension from the National Science Foundation in 1991, the Wilhelmine Key Award from the American Genetics Association in 1998, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999.
(Hal Kibbey, 812-855-0074, hkibbey@indiana.edu)