Biography
Dr. Adam Summers earned degrees in mathematics and engineering, at Swarthmore College, but was not interested in pursuing either as a career. While teaching SCUBA in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef he met his first professional biologists. He returned home to get a masters degree in Biology at New York University and the University of Massachusetts for a Ph.D. From the beginning of his research career he attempted to capitalize on previous training as an engineer to understand the evolution of the mechanical systems of animals. While researching the mechanics of salamander walking and the jaws of a particularly unusual group of limbless amphibians called caecilians at UC Berkeley, he was approached by Pixar Studios to help them with the movie Finding Nemo. He is now the Associate Director of UW Friday Harbor Laboratories. With students and collaborators he has published more than 70 articles in scientific journals on abstruse subjects including the heads of hammerhead sharks, the properties of skeletons and difficulties of eating hard prey.