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Andrew Knoll lab
Andrew H. Knoll
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Telephone: (617) 495-9306
FAX: (617) 495-5667
E-mail: aknoll at oeb dot harvard dot edu
Andrew H. Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University. He received his B.A. in Geology from Lehigh University in 1973 and his Ph.D., also in Geology, from Harvard in 1977. Following five years on the faculty of Oberlin College, Knoll returned to Harvard as Associate Professor of Biology in 1982. He has been a member of the Harvard faculty ever since, serving as Professor of Biology, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, chair of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Knoll's research focuses on the early evolution of life, Precambrian environmental history, and, especially, the interconnections between the two. The Knoll lab has investigated a range of evolutionary issues including the diversification of prokaryotic metabolisms on the Precambrian Earth, the initial radiation of eukaryotic life, the rise of large complex algae and animals near the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and the effects of dynamic environments on Paleozoic evolution and extinction. Professor Knoll also serves as a member of the science team for NASA's MER rovers, still exploring Mars more than four years after landing. He is a member of the US National Academy of sciences and a recipient of the Paleontological Society Medal and the Geological Society of London' Wollaston Medal, among other honors.
Working with other members of the MIT NAI team, the Knoll lab will conduct filed and laboratory research on environmental changes that correlate with and may have made possible the evolution of complex multicellularity near the Proterozoic-Cambrian boundary. The lab will also be engaged in comparative research on evolution in different clades that evolved complex multicellularity, especially the land plants that are well documented in the fossil record. This includes quantifying water transport, carbon assimilation and evapotranspiration rates in extinct plants; assembling fossil plant organs into whole-plant physiological reconstructions; and investigating the physiological basis of evolution and extinction patterns in the complex Multicellular organisms that shape terrestrial ecosystems on Earth. Also, the lab has begun a new round of collaborative research on Mars analog environments in and around Rio Tinto, Spain, in collaboration with colleagues from the Spanish Center for Astrobiology.