Born in London, Andrew Berry has a degree in zoology from Oxford University and a PhD in evolutionary genetics from Princeton University. He was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and is currently a lecturer on Organismic & Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. Combining the techniques of field biology with those of molecular biology, Berry’s work has been a search for evidence at the DNA level of Darwinian natural selection.
He has published on topics as diverse as giant rats in New Guinea, mice on Atlantic islands, aphids from the Far East, and the humble fruit fly. At Harvard, he currently co-teaches courses on evolutionary biology, on the development of evolutionary thinking, and on the physical basis of biological systems. He also teaches a Harvard study abroad summer program based at Queen’s College, Oxford that combines the history of science with a review of current thought in evolutionary biology. He has given lectures on evolutionary topics to popular audiences all over the world – from Ankara to the Antarctic.
Berry is the editor of a collection of the writings of Alfred Russel Wallace, the Victorian biologist who, with Charles Darwin, co-discovered natural selection; and the author, with James D. Watson, of an account of the history and impact of modern genetics published to mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix. As an educator and popularizer, he seeks to demystify the most important and most misinterpreted of all biological ideas, evolution.