Education
2006 Doctor of Philosophy, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
2000 Bachelors in Applied Zoology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec.
Professional Positions
2025 – Director, LSU Museum of Natural Science
2020 – Professor (Full)/Curator of Fishes, Louisiana State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Museum of Natural Science, LA. Named the George H. Lowery Professor in 2022-2024. Edwin K. Hunter Chair for Communication in Science Research (since 2024).
2025 – 2026 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar
2025 – Present AIBS (American Institute of Biological Sciences) Board of Directors
2024 – Present NCSE (National Center for Science Education) Board of Directors
2020 – 2021 Fulbright Canada Distinguished Chair in Environmental Science at Carleton University
2014 – 2020 Associate Professor/Curator of Fishes, Louisiana State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Museum of Natural Science, LA.
2016 - Present Research Associate National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
2012 - Present Research Associate, Division of Vertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, NY.
2016 - 2017 Program Director for National Science Foundation (Visiting Scientist, Engineer Program), Systematics and Biodiversity Sciences Cluster in the Division of Environmental Biology, Directorate for Biological Sciences, VA.
2008 - 2014 Assistant Professor/Curator of Fishes, Louisiana State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Museum of Natural Science, LA.
2006 - 2008 Post-doctoral Fellow, American Museum of Natural History, Department of Ichthyology, NY.
Awards & Honors (selected)
2025 Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
2024 Fellow of the Linnean Society
2024 Fellow (National) of the Explorer’s Club
2021 National Geographic Certified Educator
2020 Fulbright Distinguished Chair (Ottawa)
2019 Elected Fellow of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
2018 Senior TED Fellow; 2016 Class of TED Fellows
2012 Distinguished Young Alumni Award, Macdonald Campus, McGill University
Teaching
Evolution in the Galapagos (Study Abroad)
Academia and Beyond Seminar
Curatorial Methods
Introductory Biology Lab - Instructor of Record, Course-Based Undergraduate Research
College of Science Freshman Seminar, ‘How to be a Scientist’
Teaching Evolution in the Galapagos
Books
Chakrabarty, P. & Noël, A.C. (2025) Nature Selecting: A children’s book explaining evolution. LSU MNS Special Publications. ISBN: 9798218704469
Chakrabarty, P. (2023) Explaining Life Through Evolution. MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262546256
Methods in Fish Biology, 2nd Edition (2022) Editors: Stephen R. Midway, Caleb T. Hasler, Prosanta Chakrabarty. American Fisheries Society. ISBN:978-1-934874-61-5
Chakrabarty, P. (2012) A Guide to Academia: Getting into and Surviving Grad School, Postdocs and a Research Job. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. ISBN:978-0470960417
Chakrabarty, P., Warny, S., Derouen, V. (2014) Making a Big Splash With Louisiana Fishes. Special Publication of the Occasional Papers of the LSUMNS. ISBN:978-4951-2077-0
Selected Publications (of 100+, click here for full list)
Ball, L., Rodríguez-Machado, S., Paredes-Burneo, D., Rutledge, S., Boyd, D.A., Vander Pluym, D., Babb-Biernacki, S., Chipps, A.S., Öztürk, R.Ç., Terzi, Y. and Chakrabarty, P., 2025. What ‘unexplored’means: mapping regions with digitized natural history records to look for ‘biodiversity blindspots’. PeerJ, 13, p.e18511.
(w/video abstract https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ8wUrgJEao)
Chakrabarty, P., Sheehy, A.J., Clute, X., Cruz, S., Ballengée, B. 2024. Ten Years Later: An Update on the Status of Collections of Endemic Gulf of Mexico Fishes Put at Risk by the 2010 Oil Spill. Biodiversity Data Journal 12: e113399 doi: 10.3897/BDJ.12.e113399
Roy, T., Lee, J.Y., Kawashima, T., Monroe, G. and Chakrabarty, P., 2024. “The PO-Driven Model”: A Basic Science Pipeline for the Bioeconomy with Solutions Inspired by Convergent Evolution for Connecting Parallel Research Ideas. Integrative And Comparative Biology, p.icae156.
Chakrabarty, P., Faircloth, B. (co-first), Ludt, W.B., McMahan, C.D., Near, T.J., Dornberg, A., Albert, J.S., Arroyave, J., Stiassny, M.L.J.S., Sorenson, L., Alfaro, M.E. (2017) Phylogenomic Systematics of Ostariophysan fishes: Ultraconserved Elements Support the surprising non-monophyly of Characiformes. Systematic Biology 66 (6): 881-895. [Cover Article]
McMahan, C.D., Montejo, C.F., Ginger, L., Carrasco, J.C., Chakrabarty, P., W.A. 2020. Climate change models predict decreases in the range of a microendemic freshwater fish in Honduras. Scientific Reports 10: 1-10.
Poo, S., Whitfield, S., Shepack, A., Watkins-Colwell, G.J., Bogisich, A., Goodwin, J., Nelson, G., Chakrabarty, P. 2022 Bridging the gap between live collections in zoos and preserved collection in natural history museums. BioScience 72, 449-460. [COVER ARTICLE]
