Prosanta Chakrabarty

Why you should listen

Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty is a professor and Curator of Fishes at the Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Science at Louisiana State University. He is a systematist and an ichthyologist studying the evolution and biogeography of both freshwater and marine fishes. His work includes studies of Neotropical (Central and South America, Caribbean) and Indo-West Pacific (Indian and Western Pacific Ocean) fishes. His natural history collecting efforts include trips to Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Madagascar, Panama, Kuwait and many other countries. He has discovered over a dozen new species including new anglerfishes and cavefishes.

The LSU Museum of Natural Science fish collection that Chakrabarty oversees includes nearly half a million fish specimens and nearly 10,000 DNA samples covering most major groups of fishes. He earned his PhD at the University of Michigan and his undergraduate degree is from McGill University in Montreal. He has written three books, including Explaining Life through Evolution. He is also a former Program Director at the National Science Foundation. He was named a TED Fellow in 2016 and a TED Senior Fellow in 2018.