Education
B.A. Liberal Arts, The Colorado College, 1982
M.Sc. Zoology, Oklahoma State University, 1987
Ph.D. Zoology, Arizona State University, 1994
Biography
Steven Norris gained his appreciation of the living world in the deserts and mountains
of his native New Mexico. Much of this experience he owes to his father.
He attended college at The Colorado College (BA, Liberal Arts), majoring in Biology,
a department in which most classes involved field trips and significant outdoor activities
in the surrounding Rocky Mountains. In graduate school, at Oklahoma State University
(MSc, Zoology) and Arizona State University (PhD, Zoology), Dr. Norris specialized
in ichthyology, initially in fish behavior, later in fish systematics and phylogenetics.
Dr. Norris held postdoctoral positions through the University of Michigan Museum of
Zoology, Division of Fishes and The Royal Museum of Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium).
During this time, he was privileged to work closely with some of the old guard of
20th Century European and North American Ichthyology.
A general and systematic ichthyologist, Dr. Norris is interested in nearly all aspects
of the biology, ecology, evolution and conservation of fishes. His research activities
have included work on the systematics, osteology, phylogenetics and biogeography of
African freshwater fishes, the fishes of western North America and Mexico and arid
land fishes in general, and the ecology of swampland fishes of the USA.
Natural History Museums and Collections have been at the center of much of Dr. Norris’s
professional experience – both in their utilization as a researcher and in their management
and development as a curator.
His research on African, North American and Mexican freshwater fishes has been published
in regional and international meeting abstracts, and in peer-reviewed, scholarly journals
and monographs series.
Dr. Norris coauthored sections of Freshwater Fishes of Mexico by Robert Rush Miller, W.L. Minckley and Steven Mark Norris (University of Chicago
Press, 2005), and edited the entire tome for publication following the deaths of his
two co-authors.
Dr. Norris has served peer-reviewed, scientific journals in his field. He was a member
of the Editorial Board of Copeia (Journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists), and (for
two years) was Assistant Editor for General Ichthyology for the Journal of Fish Biology.
Dr. Norris is an Adjunct Research Associate of the University of Michigan Museum of
Zoology, Division of Fishes, and former NSF-NATO Fellow at the Royal Museum of Central Africa, Ichthyology Laboratory.