Adventures of a Mathematician in Evolutionary Biology

In an occasional series of articles, we will be publishing autobiographical sketches from some of those working in the field of genome evolution. The series will feature both the very eminent, but also researchers closer to their start of their career, and those from underrepresented groups. The series will show the unusual paths that academics sometimes take and the obstacles they have overcome. We start this series with one of the most influential researchers in the field of molecular evolution, Wen-Hsiung Li. Wen-Hsiung has contributed enormously to the field and published on a wide diversity of topics, as described in this autobiographical sketch; he also wrote two textbooks, one of them with Dan Graur, which for many years were the bibles of the field. He was awarded the Motoo Kimura prize by the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2019 in recognition of his contributions to our subject.