February 23, 2019, by SSSC

We welcome Dr. Hans Thewissen to Sitka as the March 2019 Scientist in Residency Fellow! Hans Thewissen has studied the paleontology, anatomy, and embryology of whales for more than three decades, and has traveled the world to study fossil and living whales. In Pakistan, he discovered skeletons of the first whales, Pakicetus and Ambulocetus, latter dubbed as the smoking gun of whale evolution by Steven Jay Gould. He documented how dolphin embryos first grow tiny limbs and then, by switching off some key genes, totally lose their hind limbs.  He has published more than 100 scientific papers, nine of which are in the prestigious journals Science and Nature.  He is one of three editors of the Marine Mammal Encyclopedia, now in its third edition.  He also wrote a popular book on the origin of whales, ‘The Walking Whales’ (University of California Press).

A native of the Netherlands, he holds degrees in biology and geology from the University of Utrecht and the University of Michigan and teaches anatomy and embryology to medical students at Northeast Ohio Medical University.  He also has appointments at Kent State University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

While in Alaska he plans to give a Natural History Seminar talk (March 7^th), visit high school science classrooms at Mt. Edgecumbe, Sitka High, and Pacific High, as well as work on a book detailing his research of the sense organs of extant whales on Alaska’s North Coast.