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Marvalee Wake

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Marvalee Wake
Born
Marvalee Hendricks

1939 (age 84–85)
Alma materUniversity of Southern California
Known forResearch in caecilian biology and vertebrate morphology
SpouseDavid B. Wake
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsZoology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Theses
Doctoral advisorJay M. Savage
Websiteib.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/wakem

Marvalee Hendricks Wake (born 1939) is an American zoologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for her research in the biology of caecilians (limbless amphibians) and vertebrate development and evolution. A 1988 Guggenheim Fellow, she has served as president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, International Union of Biological Sciences, and the International Society of Vertebrate Morphology.[1][2] She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Life

Wake attended the University of Southern California (USC), earning a B.A. 1961; M.S. in 1964; and completing her Ph.D. in 1968 under herpetologist Jay Savage.[3] While at USC she met and married biologist David B. Wake and gave birth to a son. Wake became assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and later she and her husband moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where David assumed directorship of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Marvalee became a professor. She was rapidly promoted, eventually assuming the chair of the Department of Zoology and its successor, the Department of Integrative Biology.[1] She nominally retired as professor in 2003, but remained active in research and since 2004 has held the position of Professor of the Graduate School at UC Berkeley.[1][3]

Wake is known as an expert in caecilians—a relatively little-known group of limbless amphibians—and her research has included the developmental biology, evolution, reproduction, and anatomy of these creatures.[4][5] Her research has been credited with stimulating renewed world-wide interest in the group which has historically received little research.[1] In her doctoral dissertation and a series of early papers she explored comparative aspects of caecilian reproductive anatomy, and in 1972 co-described the first evidence of caecilians in the fossil record.[6] She is also recognized for her contributions towards the field of vertebrate morphology. Biologist Brian K. Hall writes: "Consistently, passionately and effectively, Marvalee Wake has advocated the teaching of morphology as a multifaceted modern science that informs evolutionary biology and evolutionary theory, and is foundational to integrative biology."[2]: 271  She has formally collaborated with her husband—an expert in salamanders—since 1975, although the two maintain separate labs and graduate students.[7]

Wake has published or co-published over 200 journal articles and book chapters, edited a revision of the textbook Hyman's Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy (originally written by Libbie H. Hyman), and co-edited a general biology textbook (Biology, 1979) as well as the scholarly book The Origin and Evolution of Larval Forms (1999).[1]

Wake is commemorated in the name of the caecilian Microcaecilia marvaleewakeae,[8] and she and her husband are jointly commemorated in the name of the frog genus Wakea[9] and the lizard Cyrtodactylus wakeorum (Wakes' gecko).[5][10] A festschrift of papers in her honor was published in the journal Zoology in 2005.[1]

Wake has served as advisor to 17 doctoral students and 15 post-doctoral students. In 2014 she received the Henry S. Fitch Award for Excellence in Herpetology from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.[4]

Books

  • Wake, Marvalee H., ed. (1979). Hyman's Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Biology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. 1979. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  • The Origin and Evolution of Larval Forms. New York and San Diego: Academic Press. 1999. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Schwenk, Kurt; Korff, Wyatt; Matthias Starck, J. (2005). "Integrative organismal biology: Papers in honor of Professor Marvalee H. Wake" (PDF). Zoology. 108 (4): 261–267. doi:10.1016/j.zool.2005.09.002.
  2. ^ a b Hall, Brian K. (2005). "In Goethe's Wake: Marvalee Wake's conceptual contributions to the development and evolution of a science of morphology". Zoology. 108 (4): 269–275. doi:10.1016/j.zool.2005.09.005.
  3. ^ a b "Dr. Marvalee H. Wake, Curriculum Vitae". The Lab of Marvalee H. Wake. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  4. ^ a b Frost, Darrel (2015). "Marvalee H. Wake: Henry S. Fitch Award for Excellence in Herpetology—2014". Copeia. 103 (1): 2. doi:10.1643/OT-15-252.
  5. ^ a b Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. JHU Press. pp. 278–279. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5.
  6. ^ Estes, Richard; Wake, Marvalee H. (1972). "The first fossil record of caecilian amphibians". Nature. 239 (5369): 228–231. doi:10.1038/239228b0.
  7. ^ Wake, David B. (2010). "BIO" (PDF). Evolution & Development. 12 (3): 244–245. doi:10.1111/j.1525-142X.2010.00409.x.
  8. ^ Maciel, Adriano O.; Hoogmoed, Marinus S. (2013). "A new species of Microcaecilia (Amphibia: Gymnophiona: Siphonopidae) from the Guianan region of Brazil". Zootaxa. 3693 (3): 387–94. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3693.3.9. PMID 26185857. It is with great pleasure that we name this species in honor of Dr. Marvalee H. Wake... one of the most important present day researchers of caecilians and author of many publications on development, morphology, phylogeny, and reproductive biology of these secretive animals.
  9. ^ Glaw, Frank; Vences, Miguel (2006). "Phylogeny and genus-level classification of mantellid frogs (Amphibia, Anura)". Organisms Diversity & Evolution. 6 (3): 236–253. doi:10.1016/j.ode.2005.12.001. We are pleased to dedicate this genus to David and Marvalee Wake, Berkeley, in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the understanding of amphibian biology.
  10. ^ Bauer, Aaron M. (2003). "Descriptions of seven new Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) with a key to the species of Myanmar (Burma)" (PDF). Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. 54 (25): 463–498. for their contributions to herpetology, vertebrate morphology, and evolutionary biology and for their valuable mentoring of many graduate students
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