Sewall Wright

Sewall Wright (1889 - 1988)

Sewall Wright (1889–1988) was an American geneticist and one of the leading figures in the development of modern population genetics. Wright earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1915. Early in his career, he worked for the US Department of Agriculture, where his practical work in animal breeding laid foundations for his subsequent mathematical work. Along with Ronald Fisher and JBS Haldane, Wright is considered one of the founders of Population Genetics and the Modern Synthesis of genetics and Darwinian evolution. He developed the concept of genetic drift, by which random (stochastic) changes in allele frequencies may counter directed (deterministic) changes such as natural selection, especially in smaller populations. He also introduced the idea of adaptive landscapes, a model for understanding how populations can move through different combinations of genetic traits during evolution. His Evolution in Mendelian Populations (1931) demonstrates how mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and migration interact to produce evolutionary changes. His four-volume Genetics of Natural Populations (1968 - 1978) remains a fundamental introduction to population genetic theory.

Wright taught at the University of Chicago, and upon formal retirement moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he continued his research and teaching for many years. Wright remained scientifically active into advanced age and published research into his late nineties. Several scientific papers were in preparation or in press when he died in 1988, at the age of 98, thus he achieved the remarkable feat of publishing pastthe age of 100.