2015 Rohlf Medal Recipient - Dr. Benedikt Hallgrimsson

The 2015 recipient of the Rohlf Medal for Excellence in Morphometric Methods and Applications is Dr. Benedikt Hallgrimsson. 

Dr. Hallgrimsson, Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the University of Calgary, combines developmental genetics with 3D imaging and morphometrics to address the developmental basis and evolutionary significance of phenotypic variation and variability of the mammalian craniofacial complex, with special reference to animal analogues of human craniofacial dysmorphology. His studies combine the quantitative power and detailed anatomical characterization of phenotypic effects that morphometric methods provide with inferences to the developmental processes responsible for those effects.

Recently he has pioneered applications of geometric morphometrics to large samples of embryos, potentially rendering high-throughput morphometric analysis a tool just as relevant to medicine as to developmental biology or morphometrics. That geometric morphometrics is now widely accepted as a technique in developmental biology is largely due to Hallgrimsson's work in his laboratory and in his role as editor of the journal Evolutionary Biology. For his excellence in evo-devo morphometric research, for his advances in the imaging technology that drives the research, and for his varied and energetic efforts at disseminating all this to a broad variety of audiences, Benedikt Hallgrimsson richly deserves the honor of this third Rohlf Medal for Excellence in Morphometrics.

The Rohlf Medal was established in 2006 by the family and friends of F. James Rohlf to mark his 70th birthday. He has been a longtime Stony Brook University faculty member and is currently Emeritus Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, and Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology.

The medal will be presented to Dr. Hallgrimsson on October 26, 2015 at Stony Brook University.