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Bernard Crespi, renowned globally for his experimental and theoretical contributions to evolutionary biology, is Simon Fraser University’s 40th scholar to be elected to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC).

The RSC — founded by the Governor General of Canada, the Marquess of Lorne, in 1882 — has evolved from being a largely honorific society into one of the most prestigious academic organizations to elect Canadian scholars.

Crespi’s election to the RSC’s Academy of Science’s division of life sciences recognizes the SFU professor’s contributions to understanding the evolution of social behaviour in many fields of evolutionary biology.

An SFU Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology Research Group member, Crespi integrates genetic, ecological and evolutionary development research to study social evolution across all levels in the hierarchy of life from genes to the human brain.

Crespi’s research has led to fundamental new insights into how and when social cooperation and different reproductive strategies evolve, and how human evolutionary history has influenced the causes of diseases.

In the last two years, Crespi’s work has shaken the theoretical foundations of how mental disorders are understood. He has proposed and tested the hypothesis that autism and schizophrenia are opposite disorders, with risks directly influenced by changes to genes underlying human social evolution.

His analysis of all the genetic and genomic data available on both disorders has proven a mother’s genetic makeup is associated with schizophrenia, while a father’s predicts autism.

Crespi, who lives in Port Moody, has given more than 100 invited talks about his work, worldwide.  He has published more than 100 articles in premier scientific journals, including four articles in Nature. He has served on the editorial boards of many of the top journals in his field.

Among his many awards are the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize, a Killam Research Fellowship and the E.O. Wilson Award from the American Society of Naturalists for his contributions to evolutionary biology.

Crespi will be formally recognized as a new fellow of the RSC during the induction and awards ceremony on Nov. 27 in Ottawa.

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