Billie J. Swalla

Billie J. Swalla is a professor of biology at the University of Washington. She was the first female director of Friday Harbor Laboratories, where she worked from 2012 to 2019. Her lab investigates the evolution of chordates by comparative genetic and phylogenetic analysis of animal taxa.

Education

Billie Swalla earned her Bachelor of Science in Zoology from the University of Iowa in 1980. She earned a Master of Science there, with a thesis on chicken egg development in 1983. She earned her PhD in Biology, also at Iowa, on chicken egg development in 1988. She became a Post-Doctoral Fellow with William R. Jeffery studying gene expression during ascidian egg development. Swalla is a member of the Society for Advancing Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and has worked to increase representation in the sciences. She has mentored REU students, taught sessions at local elementary schools, high schools, and community colleges, and in international workshops to multinational audiences. In 2025, Swalla was awarded the Society for Developmental Biology Lifetime Achievement Award.

Publications