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Mark Siddall

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Canadian biologist

Mark E. Siddall is a Canadian biologist and former curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Siddall has studied the evolution and systematics of blood parasites and leeches, and systematic theory. Siddall was hired as an assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in July, 1999 and worked there as a curator until September, 2020, when he was terminated for allegedly having violated the museum's policy prohibiting sexual relationships between staff and mentees. Siddall denied the claim.

Education

Siddall completed a Masters and PhD under the supervision of Sherwin S. Desser at the University of Toronto in 1991 and 1994, respectively.

Career

After completing his PhD, Siddall completed a postdoc at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Subsequently, he was a fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows from 1996-1999. He also acted as treasurer of the Willi Hennig Society, publisher of the journal Cladistics.

Siddall has worked and published on parasitic and other animals, including leeches, jellyfish, guinea worms, and bed bugs.

He is author of the science book Poison: Sinister Species with Deadly Consequences.

In 2016, Siddall, Jonathan Eisen, and others were involved in the Twitter controversy #ParsimonyGate.

The American Museum of Natural History fired Siddall in September 2020 for alleged sexual harassment, citing museum policy that prohibits sexual relationships between staff and mentees under their academic supervision. An outside law firm representing the museum's interests found that Siddall had "engaged in verbal, written, and physical conduct of a sexual nature that had the effect of unreasonably interfering with your academic performance." Siddall denied that any sexual encounter ever took place, and claimed he was fired because "he had found a serious error" in a paper.

Research

Siddall studies phylogenetics and evolution. Siddall has been described as "a staunch supporter of parsimony and a harsh critic of maximum likelihood approaches”, although "having mellowed a bit on that".

References

  1. ^ Jacobs, Julia (October 2, 2020). "Museum Fires Curator Who It Says Sexually Harassed Student Researcher". New york Times.
  2. Siddall, Mark; Kluge, Arnold (December 1997). "Probabilism and phylogenetic inference". Cladistics. 13 (4): 313–336. doi:10.1006/clad.1997.0046. hdl:2027.42/71951.
  3. "INTRODUCTION OF PRESIDENT MARK E. SIDDALL". ProQuest.
  4. "U of T Magazine | Winter 2014". Issuu. 10 December 2013.
  5. "Mark Siddall". World Science Festival. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  6. Siddall, Mark E. (2016). "Presidential Address: Reinvention and Resolve". The Journal of Parasitology. 102 (6): 566–571. doi:10.1645/16-113. JSTOR 44810235. PMID 27626125. S2CID 11802614.
  7. ^ Burreson, Eugene M.; Siddall, Mark E.; Connors, Vincent A. (2002). "Society Business". The Journal of Parasitology. 88 (6): 1053–1070. doi:10.1645/0022-3395(2002)088[1053:IOMESA]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3285473. PMID 12537094. S2CID 44766356.
  8. "All Events | U-M LSA University of Michigan Herbarium". lsa.umich.edu.
  9. ^ "Twitter Nerd-Fight Reveals a Long, Bizarre Scientific Feud". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
  10. ^ Zimmer, Carl (2006-02-07). "His Subject: Highly Evolved and Exquisitely Thirsty". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  11. Yong, Ed (2016-08-22). "A Tiny Jellyfish Relative Just Shut Down Yellowstone River". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  12. Palmer, Brian (2015-03-10). "We're on the Verge of the Greatest Public Health Triumph of the 21st Century". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  13. Borel, Brooke (2016-02-02). "Bed bug genome shows how gnarly these creatures really are". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  14. Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Old Bugs". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  15. Mark Siddall (2014). Poison: Sinister Species with Deadly Consequences. Sterling Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-4549-0764-0.
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