Regents Professor Doug Emlen

November 20, 2020

Dear Campus Community,

I am excited to announce that Dr. Doug Emlen was named a Regents Professor of Evolutionary Biology today, the highest professor rank in the Montana University System.

Emlen is the 13th UM faculty member to earn a Regents Professor recognition, and his nomination was supported by numerous colleagues on our campus and across the country.

A global thought and research leader on evolution and animal weaponry, Dr. Emlen has garnered international acclaim. In 2016, he became the first researcher from any Montana institution to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the greatest honors available to American scholars.

In addition to being named a Regent Professor, Dr. Emlen has earned numerous other accolades throughout his career, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2002, the E.O. Wilson Naturalist Award in 2013 and UM’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2014. He was also named the Montana Professor of the Year in 2015 from the Carnegie Foundation and Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Dr. Emlen’s 2015 book, “Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle,” earned the Phi Beta Kappa science book of the year, and in 2017 NOVA and Britain’s BBC partnered to create a documentary about his work titled “Nature’s Wildest Weapons: Horns, Tusks and Antlers.”

In advance of the Board of Regents honoring Dr. Emlen, two of his colleagues and a student paid tribute to him in this video that I encourage you to watch.

On behalf of the entire UM Family, I want to thank Dr. Emlen for his contributions to our University and to his students. Please join me in congratulating him on this well-deserved honor.

Seth