معرفی
Claus O. Wilke is a Professor and holds the Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professorship in Molecular Evolution at The University of Texas at Austin, with appointments in the Department of Integrative Biology, Statistics and Data Sciences, and Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Graduate Programs.
Wilke earned his PhD in Theoretical Physics from Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, and completed postdoctoral training with Chris Adami at Caltech. His research focuses on computational evolutionary biology, bioinformatics, and biostatistics, with particular emphasis on molecular evolution (virus evolution and protein evolution biophysics), systems biology, and bacterial physiology. His work bridges theoretical approaches with biological applications through frequent collaborations with experimental groups.
Wilke has made significant contributions to data visualization through his R packages including cowplot, ggridges, and ggtext, and as a core contributor to ggplot2. His 2019 book Fundamentals of Data Visualization has become a standard reference in the field, providing comprehensive guidance on effective visualization principles and techniques.
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2023)
- Fellow, American Physical Society (APS), Division of Biological Physics (2019)
- Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow (2013)
- Leading Texas Innovator by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas (TAMEST) (2011)
- Teaching Excellence Award, College of Natural Sciences, UT Austin (2010)
His nearly 200 publications demonstrate consistent productivity across computational biology, molecular evolution, and data visualization. Wilke leads The Wilke Lab at UT Austin, which provides research opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in computational approaches to evolutionary questions. Beyond research, he maintains an active blog discussing data visualization techniques, R programming, and scientific computing best practices.
