biology

Joanna Masel

Joanna Masel is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Joanna Masel rather than just read about it. In short: Joanna Monti-Masel (also known as Joanna Masel) is an American theoretical evolutionary biologist. Since 2016 she has been a full professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona.

Key takeaways

Joanna Masel belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Joanna Masel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Joanna Masel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Joanna Monti-Masel (also known as Joanna Masel) is an American theoretical evolutionary biologist. Since 2016 she has been a full professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. She studies the question of evolvability, namely, why evolution works given that mutations to working systems will usually be detrimental to their function.

Early life Masel was raised in Melbourne, Australia. She was educated at the University of Melbourne, taking her B.Sc. in 1996. She was awarded the 1997 Rhodes Scholarship and completed her D.Phil. in zoology at the University of Oxford in 2001. She went to Stanford University as a researcher before moving to the University of Arizona in 2004.

Career Masel has published at least 75 peer-reviewed papers. In 2013 she received a research grant from the John Templeton Foundation to study how and where new genes arise. She runs a theoretical group in the University of Arizona's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department where she investigates aspects of evolvability. Masel argues that the conventional account of the origin of new genes, namely that they are commonly duplicated from old genes and then evolve to diverge from them, is a chicken and egg explanation, since a functional gene would have to exist before a new function could evolve. She suggests instead that new genes are born continually from non-coding DNA, a form of preadaptation.

Books Bypass Wall Street: A Biologist's Guide to the Rat Race, Perforce Publishing, 2016

Awards and distinctions Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2012–13 Outstanding Faculty Mentor, Honorable Mention, University of Arizona Undergraduate Biology Research Program, 2011 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, 2007 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 2007 Merton College Prize Scholarship, 1999 Rhodes Scholarship, 1997

Notes

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Joanna Masel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Joanna Masel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Joanna Masel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Joanna Masel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Joanna Masel

In research: Joanna Masel appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Joanna Masel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Joanna Masel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of Merton College, Oxford, American evolutionary biologists, Australian biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Joanna Masel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Joanna Masel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Joanna Masel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Joanna Masel out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Joanna Masel in simple terms?

Why does Joanna Masel matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Joanna Masel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Joanna Masel.