Olivia Judson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olivia Judson (born 1970) is an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London. Judson, who is the daughter of science historian Horace Freeland Judson, was a pupil of W.D. Hamilton. She graduated from Stanford University, gained a doctorate from Oxford, and worked for some time as a journalist before becoming a research fellow at Imperial College London.

Beginning in 1995 she worked for two years as a science writer for the Economist. Her first book, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation (2002), grew out of the article "Sex Is War!" she wrote for the Economist in 1997. Written in the style of a sex-advice column to animals, the book details the variety of sexual practices in the natural world and provides the reader with an overview of the evolutionary biology of sex. The book was praised by critics as being witty and engaging, without compromising its scientific integrity. It became an international best-seller and was nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2003.

Judson has also worked as a television presenter. In 2004 she played Dr Tatiana in an adaptation of her book; the series was produced by Wag TV and EPI Productions for Channel 4 and Discovery Canada. In 2007 she co-presented Animal Pharm with Giles Coren; the series, which explored genetic modification and farming, was produced by Lion Television for Channel 4.

In January 2008, Judson began writing a weekly blog on evolutionary biology, titled "The Wild Side", for The New York Times website. Her blog entry for December 30, 2008 announced: "From today, I’m taking a six-month sabbatical to work on a new book; I’ll be back at the beginning of July." [1] This second book is titled Dinosaur Eggs for Breakfast [2].

She has supported a possible future campaign to completely wipe out malaria mosquitoes.