Summary
Professor Vincent Savolainen is the Director of the Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment, a College initiative that brings together a multi-disciplinary group of researchers to tackle some of the greatest environmental challenges. Professor Savolainen was Deputy Head of the Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park Campus) between 2013 and 2016. Before joining Imperial College in 2007, he spent nine years as Deputy Head of Molecular Systematics at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Professor Savolainen is a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. In 2006, he was awarded the Linnean Society’s Bicentenary Medal. In 2008, he was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant, and the following year a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. In 2014, he was elected a Member of EMBO, and was awarded the Coincy Medal for Botany. In 2015, he was listed in Reuters World's Most Influential Scientific Minds for publishing some of the greatest numbers of highly cited papers in plant and animal science during 2003-2013. Professor Savolainen sits on various panels and advisory committees, including the UK Natural Environment Research Council Peer Review College and the Royal Society International Committees.
His group combines field ecology, molecular phylogenetics, and population genomic approaches to key societal challenges, from explaining the origin of biodiversity to finding solutions for its preservation in a rapidly changing world. Recent research also tackles sexual behaviour in animals and assortment in humans.
Current group members:
Matthew Coathup
Ewan Flintham
Phil Marler
Dr Alba Herraiz
Publications
Journals
Clive J, Flintham E, Savolainen V, Understanding same-sex sexual behaviour requires thorough testing rather than reinvention of theory, Nature Ecology and Evolution, ISSN:2397-334X
Osborne OG, Kafle T, Brewer T, et al., Sympatric speciation in Mountain Roses (Metrosideros) on an oceanic island, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, ISSN:0962-8436
Dures SG, Carbone C, Savolainen V, et al., 2020, Ecology rather than people restrict gene flow in Okavango-Kalahari lions, Animal Conservation, ISSN:1367-9430
Clive J, Wisden W, Savolainen V, The de-scent of sexuality: should we smell a rat?, Archives of Sexual Behavior: an Interdisciplinary Research Journal, ISSN:0004-0002
Coathup M, Osborne OG, Savolainen V, 2019, Speciation: how predictable is genome evolution?, Elife, Vol:8, ISSN:2050-084X