Maria R. Servedio is a Canadian-American professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[1] Her research spans a wide range of topics in evolutionary biology from sexual selection to evolution of behavior. She largely approaches these topics using mathematical models. Her current research interests include speciation and reinforcement, mate choice, and learning with a particular focus on evolutionary mechanisms that promote premating (prezygotic) isolation. Through integrative approaches and collaborations, she uses mathematical models along with experimental, genetic, and comparative techniques to draw conclusions on how evolution occurs. She has published extensively on these topics and has more than 50 peer-reviewed articles. She served as Vice President in 2018 of the American Society of Naturalists,[2] and has been elected to serve as President in 2023.[3]
Servedio attended Harvard University from 1989 to 1993. While there she received several awards for academic achievement including the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Certificate of Merit and the John Harvard Scholarship. After completing her A.B., she went to the University of Texas at Austin to do a PhD under the tutelage of Mark Kirkpatrick. Her dissertation was titled "Preferences, signals and evolution: theoretical studies of mate choice copying, reinforcement, and aposematic coloration." Following that, she did a few postdoctoral positions at Cornell University, University of California, Davis, and University of California, San Diego before taking a position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002 where she has progressed to full professor in the Department of Biology.[4]
Servedio has focused understanding how mechanisms that prevent different species from interbreeding from mating with one another through a theoretical framework coupled with experimental evidence. Most of her research involved constructing mathematical models to better understand prezygotic isolation. Another topic she has focused on is why males choose mates, and she has found conditions in which females can have traits which are favored by males and that preference for those traits can persist, suggesting that both are adaptive.[5]
She served as Vice President of the American Society of Naturalists in 2018[6] as well as serving as handling editor for Evolution since 2015.[7] Through her career, she has acted in editorial capacity for a number of other journals including Current Zoology, PeerJ, Behavioral Ecology, Quarterly Review of Biology, and The American Naturalist. Further, she has reviewed articles for over 25 journals and acted as a reviewer for 9 different granting agencies, including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She currently has one graduate student and has trained 5 others as well as 8 postdoctoral fellows.[8] She has extensive experience teaching courses largely focusing on using mathematical modeling in biology.
Servedio has an extensive history of publishing on topics in evolutionary biology. Below are some select articles on which she has been an author: