Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi today (June 2) announced her appointment of evolution and ecology professor Peter C. Wainwright as the interim dean of the College of Biological Sciences, effective July 1.

He will succeed James Hildreth, who is leaving after nearly four years as dean to become the president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville.

Wainwright, recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been the college’s executive associate dean for resources and research since 2013. He was chair of the Department of Evolution and Ecology from 2011 to 2013, and led the college’s faculty personnel committee in 2010 and 2011.

“As an academic and administrative leader, Peter is perfectly suited to step into the interim dean’s role," the chancellor said. "The provost and I are delighted that Peter has agreed to provide leadership to the college during this period of transition."

A national recruitment for a new dean will start in the fall.

Wainwright said of his interim role:: “I am honored to work with such a distinguished group of faculty, and I look forward to continued success of our undergraduates and the research in the college,”

He joined the UC Davis faculty as an associate professor in 1999 and has twice been honored for teaching. The Academic Senate recognized him in 2008 as a distinguished teacher at the undergraduate level, and the College of Biological Sciences gave him its Distinguished Teaching Award in 2009.

He chaired the Population Biology Graduate Group from 2001 to 2007. He advanced to full professor in 2002.

He was elected a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences in 2010, and entered the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in the category of Evolutionary and Population Biology and Ecology, on April 28 of this year.

In January he began a two-year term as the president of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

Wainwright holds a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Duke University and a Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of Chicago. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at UC Irvine and a faculty member at Florida International University and Florida State University before coming to UC Davis.

His research program focuses on the biomechanics and evolution of fishes. He employs phylogenetic approaches to understand major evolutionary transitions in the history of fishes and how the system of muscles and bones that makes up the skull has been modified during evolution with adaptation to feeding on different prey and with the evolution of major functional novelties.

Wainwright teaches undergraduate courses in animal diversity and vertebrate anatomy. He also teaches graduate courses in phylogenetics and comparative methods, including the Bodega Applied Phylogenetics Workshop that is taken by graduate students from around the world

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