Kevin de Queiroz is a vertebrate, evolutionary, and systematic biologist. He has worked in the phylogenetics and evolutionary biology of squamate reptiles, the development of a unified species concept and of a phylogenetic approach to biological nomenclature, and the philosophy of systematic biology. He received a B.S. in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles (1978), a M.S. in Zoology from San Diego State University (1985), and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley (1989). He was a Tilton Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Academy of Sciences and is currently a Research Zoologist and a curator of the collection of Amphibians and Reptiles at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. He is a former president of the Society of Systematic Biologists and was the first president of the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature.
D. Cantino received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and is currently Professor Emeritus in Environmental and Plant Biology at ohio University. His primary interests are angiosperm systematics (with emphasis on the phylogeny and taxonomy of Labiatae) and phylogenetic nomenclature, an alternative to traditional biological nomenclature that is designed to name the parts of the tree of life by explicit reference to phylogeny. He is an active member of the Committee on Phylogenetic Nomenclature.
Jacques Gauthier received a B.S. and M.S. degrees in Zoology at San Diego State University, and a PhD in Paleontology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984. Currently he is a Professor of Geology and Geophysics and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and Vertebrate Zoology at Yale University. His published works include a classic work on the paleontology and phylogeny of the lizard clade Anguimorpha, the first major cladistic analysis of Diapsida, which argued for the monophyly of the dinosaurs, and an important paper on the origin of birds from theropods. Gauthier's corpus is remarkable in that he contributed the foundational phylogenetic studies of Archosauria and Lepidosauria, two major amniote clades; and he was the primary author of the foundational and still widely cited phylogenetic study of Amniota as a whole. More recently, he has argued together with Kevin de Queiroz for replacing Linnaean taxonomy with the PhyloCode. In addition to his theoretical work on systematics and taxonomy, Gauthier continues to study the anatomy and relationships of diapsids, particularly lepidosaurs. His lizard work currently focuses on Scincomorpha, following on a career-long interest in the unusual clade Xantusiidae.
