David Baum

Professor of Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison


David Baum is a Professor of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where his overarching research goal is to understand how evolution works to generate the remarkable diversity of living organisms around us today. In addition to various theoretical and conceptual interests, he has focused on evolutionary-developmental and molecular phylogenetic research on flowering plants.  Additionally, he has begun a new empirical research program on biopoiesis, the origins of life-like chemical systems.

David earned his Ph.D from Washington University in 1991.