David Blackburn
Dave Blackburn is a biologist who studies the diversity and natural history of amphibians, especially frogs. His research group has broad interests ranging from inferring evolutionary relationships, discovering both new species and new aspects of biology, describing the anatomy of living and extinct species, and understanding population declines. Their research involves collaborators and frogs across nearly every continent. He is currently investigating the fossil history of frogs of the Caribbean, North America, and Central America, revealing insights into the timing and origin of Caribbean amphibians. To date, Dave’s work has resulted in more than 150 publications, more than 30 new frog species, and the training of many students and early career scientists from the US, Africa, South America, and Europe. Research by Dave and his lab has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, WIRED, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic Magazine, as well as in the book The Lost Species by Christopher Kemp and children’s books such as When Lunch Fights Back by Rebecca Johnson.
Dave currently serves as the Associate Director for Research & Collections, Department Chair, and Curator of Amphibians & Reptiles at the Florida Museum of Natural History, part of the University of Florida and the largest university-based natural history museum in the United States. Dave has worked with or in museums for 25 years extending from training as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago (during which he spent four months in the Sahara excavating dinosaurs), a Ph.D. student at Harvard University (with field research on frogs in Cameroon and Malawi), and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute (where his work expanded to frog in southeast Asia and South America). In recognition of his scholarship on amphibian evolution and efforts to make museum collections more widely accessible, he has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Linnean Society of London.
Dave lives in Gainesville, Florida with his family, including a dog, a snake, and a tortoise. He hopes to one day see every living frog family in its wild home.