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Dr. David C. Queller
Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology, Washington University
"Multicellularity by aggregation: the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum"
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David C. Queller is a leading evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis where he is the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology. He received his BA from The University of Illinois in 1976, and his PhD from The University Michigan in 1982. He was on the faculty of Rice University in Houston, Texas from 1989 until 2011. His work focuses on both theoretical and empirical aspects of the evolution of social interactions, especially kin selection. After years of working on social insects, he and collaborator Joan Strassmann switched to the study of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Their work has focused on how multicellularity evolves in this organism when the body can be formed of cells of different genotypes.