Michael Clegg

(Geneticist, United States). Distinguished professor of plant genetics at the University of California where he graduated and obtained his PhD. Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Sciences of that university from 1994 to 2000. Founding Director of the Institute of Genomics, later re-named Institute for Integrative Genome Biology. He has published over 150 scientific articles, book chapters and he is author and editor of 7 books. His current specialty is population genetics and molecular evolution, with work focused on the dynamic behavior of genes in plants. He has contributed to theoretical studies and computer models and simulations and has works that are pioneers in the comparative analysis of DNA variations, comparative genomics of plants, gene families, and molecular evolution. He has received numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship (1981) and the Darwin Prize of Edinburgh University (1995). He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 1990 and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. He is the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the National Academy, has been the President of the Genetics Society of America in 1987, President of the International Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2002. He chairs the Section of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003. He is currently Co-President of IANAS, American Network of Academies of Sciences. In October 2008 he co-authored an editorial published in the journal Science that denounces how damaging is the embargo against Cuba.