Wyatt Anderson


Wyatt Wheaton Anderson is an American geneticist and evolutionary biologist. He is Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Genetics in the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. He was also the dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences from 1992 until he stepped down in 2004. He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1987, and is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Research

Anderson is known for his research on the evolutionary genetics of Drosophila. In 2012, for example, he co-authored a study with Patricia Adair Gowaty and Yong-Kyu Kim in which they attempted, and failed, to replicate a famous 1948 study by Angus John Bateman. Their results indicated that Bateman was wrong in his conclusions that male Drosophila melanogaster were promiscuous and females were more "choosy" with regard to their mating behaviors.

Personal life

Anderson is married to Margaret Anderson, a statistician with whom he co-founded the Wyatt and Margaret Anderson Professorship in the Arts at UGA. The first recipient of this professorship was Frederick Burchinal in 2006.