astronomy

William Jeffery

William Jeffery is a astronomy 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 William Jeffery rather than just read about it. In short: William R. Jeffery is an American professor of evolutionary developmental biology whose studies focus on the evolution of development, especially blind cavefish and tunicates.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

William R. Jeffery is an American professor of evolutionary developmental biology whose studies focus on the evolution of development, especially blind cavefish and tunicates. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Linnean Society of London.

Early life Born in Chicago, Jeffery obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from University of Illinois in 1968 and his Ph.D. from University of Iowa three years later. In 1971, for a year, he worked as a teacher at the Children's School of Science, Woods Hole, MA. From 1971 to 1972 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the same years worked as postdoc at the McArdle Laboratory of University of Wisconsin–Madison. He continued his postdoctoral fellowship from 1972 to 1974 at the Tufts University School of Medicine for those two years.

Career After becoming a faculty member in zoology in the University of Texas at Austin, Jeffery published a study in Developmental Biology which suggested that Poly(A)-binding protein is present in oocyte and is responsible for oogenesis in the African clawed frog. In 1983 he along with Craig R. Tomlinson and Richard D. Brodeur studied Styela plicata's eggs and suggested that cytoplasmic regions also carry messenger RNA codes for actin isoform. In 1995 he, Billie J. Swalla and Noriyuki Satoh studied tailless tadpole larvae of the Ascidiacea species and discovered that the Manx gene may be responsible for tail control and development. In 1990, Jeffery moved from the University of Texas to the University of California, Davis and was a researcher at the Bodega Marine Laboratory. Here he continued to work on evolutionary changes in development between tailess and tailed ascidian species and began research to develop the cave fish Astyanax mexicanus as a model system to study the evolutionary basis of eye and pigment degeneration in cave animals. In 1995-96 Jeffery was President of the Society for Developmental Biology. From 1996 to 1999 Jeffery was the head of the Department of Biology at the Pennsylvania State University and then from that year to 2004 was chairman of the same field at the University of Maryland. For a year after that he was a visiting scientist at the CNRS and then held the same position at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb, Croatia from 2011 to 2012. Currently, Jeffery is a Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also conducts research at Marine Biological Laboratory Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and the Stion Biologique, Roscoff, France.

Honors and awards Jeffery is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. In 1992, he was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and then in 2008 became a fellow of the Linnean Society of London. In 2010, Jeffery received the Karst Waters Research Award for his studies in subterranean biology. In 2012 Jeffery was awarded the Alexander Kowalevsky Medal by the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists for extraordinary achievements in evolutionary developmental biology and comparative zoology. In 2018, Jeffery received the Science Award from the National Speleological Society. In 2021 he received the Board of Visitors Distinguished Faculty Award from the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences.

References

External links Jeffery Lab webpage, University of Maryland William Jeffery publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with William Jeffery

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what William Jeffery claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, 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 William Jeffery 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 William Jeffery 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 William Jeffery

In research: William Jeffery appears in astronomy 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 William Jeffery 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: William Jeffery is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940s births, 21st-century American biologists, American evolutionary biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for William Jeffery 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 William Jeffery in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what William Jeffery 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 William Jeffery out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is William Jeffery in simple terms?

William R. Jeffery is an American professor of evolutionary developmental biology whose studies focus on the evolution of development, especially blind cavefish and tunicates.

Why does William Jeffery matter?

Because it connects several astronomy 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 William Jeffery?

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 William Jeffery.