Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He is best known for his theory of punctuated equilibrium, developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972, which suggests that evolution is characterized by long periods of stability interrupted by rapid periods of branching speciation. Gould taught at Harvard University and worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York for most of his career. In 1996, he became the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University. Gould's influential work in popular science writing made him one of the most widely read authors in the field.