Steven M. Stanley

Steven M. Stanley is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, born in 1941, who spent most of his career at Johns Hopkins University from 1969 to 2005 before moving to Florida State University, best known for empirical research documenting the pattern of punctuated equilibrium in the fossil record. In 1972 he proposed the predation hypothesis for the Cambrian explosion, arguing that pressure from predators drove prey species to evolve shells, rapid locomotion and burrowing behavior. He received the Charles Schuchert Award in 1977, the Mary Clark Thompson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, the William H. Twenhofel Medal in 2008 and the Paleontological Society Medal in 2007. He received the Penrose Medal in 2013.