Citation
Mr. President, I have the great honor of presenting an award-winning author, Emmy-winning film producer, and educational leader who has been called “the greatest science storyteller of our time”: Dr. Sean B. Carroll. Dr Carroll is the Andrew and Mary Balo and Nicholas and Susan Simon Endowed Chair at the University of Maryland.
Dr. Carroll, as an evolutionary developmental biologist, your pioneering research has centered on the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. But you know instinctively that even the most essential research can go undiscovered and unappreciated unless a broader understanding of it can be achieved. You have conquered this challenge by mastering the art of communicating complex concepts to a wide audience — in books and through film — in a way that brings needed context and clarity to important scientific explorations and breakthroughs. Yours is a rare but imperative gift among scientists.
In your books, you ask us to accompany you as you journey into the unseen universe of molecular genetics, piece together the biological scaffolding of the animal kingdom, and breach the limits of accepted knowledge to consider the profound questions surrounding the origins of life. With clear and deft prose, you afford us access to the evolution of the beautiful and fragile forms that populate our natural world and urge us to ponder our place among them.
As an executive producer on the Emmy-winning documentary “Voyager” you have taken us into deep space where the two Voyager probes are transmitting critical information about distant planets. In the Oscar-nominated film “All That Breathes,” which you also executive produced, you follow two brothers in New Delhi who operate a makeshift hospital in their tiny basement where they treat ailing birds who daily drop onto the streets from smog-choked skies. Your book and film “Serengeti Rules” upends common perceptions about nature and offers new hope for restoring our world.
Dr. Carroll, your stories compel and challenge; they inform and warn. And we are grateful that you are telling them.
Mr. President, on behalf of the trustees, faculty, students, and staff at Clark University, it gives me great pleasure to request that the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, be conferred upon Dr. Sean B. Carroll.