Honored Guest: Dr. Jonathan Campbell

 

Dr. Jonathan Campbell received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1982, under the supervision of Dr. Bill Duellman. He has been a professor at The University of Texas at Arlington since 1983 and Chair of the Department of Biology since 2001. During his tenure at UTA he has trained nearly 35 Master’s and Ph.D. students. He is also Curator of the Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center at UT Arlington, which he was instrumental in building into an internationally recognized scientific collection containing over 130,000 specimens from 90 countries.

 

Dr. Campbell’s research has focused on the reptiles and amphibians of Latin America, including substantial work on the biology and systematics of pitvipers. He has published over 150 scientific articles, including major systematic monographs and revisions, and described more than 100 new species. Thirty-one of these scientific manuscripts relate specifically to pitviper ecology and evolution. In recognition of his contribution to herpetology he has had 10 species named in his honor, two of which being pitvipers – Bothrops jonathani and Bothrocophias campbelli.

 

He has additionally published five books, including the Biology of the Pitvipers, the Venomous Reptiles of Latin America, and The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere. He has received numerous awards in herpetology, including the Fitch Award for Excellence in Herpetology from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the W. Frank Blair Eminent Naturalist Award from the Southwestern Association of Naturalists, and the Distinguished Herpetologist Award from the Herpetologists League. When characterizing Dr. Campbell’s career, Dr. Jonathan Losos remarked: “He has studied the biodiversity and biogeography of Central and South America, often as faunas were going extinct. It is no hyperbole to say that, without his work, many forms would have gone extinct without even being known.”