Rosemary Gillespie

Rosemary Gillespie is an evolutionary biologist and professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, Division of Insect Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the President of the American Genetics Association in 2018 and was previously President of the International Biogeography Society 2013–2015. From 2011 to 2013 she had served at the president of the American Arachnological Society. As of 2020 she is the faculty director of the Essig Museum of Entomology and a Professor and Schlinger Chair in systematic entomology at the University of California, Berkeley. Gillespie is known for her work on the evolution of communities on hotspot archipelagoes.

Education and previous employment She was born and raised in Scotland. In 1980, she received her B.SC in zoology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Gillespie moved to the United States to study the behavioral ecology of arachnids at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville where she earned her Ph.D.

Research

Gillespie's research program is aimed at understanding what drives biological diversification, particularly at the level of populations and species. She uses islands of known age and isolation to assess the combined temporal and spatial dimension of biogeography and determine patterns of diversification, adaptive radiation, and associated community assembly with a focus on spiders and insects. Most of her work has been on spiders, in particular species in the genus Tetragnatha (Tetragnathidae). She also works on the evolution of diversity within species, with the primary focus here on color polymorphism in the Hawaiian Happy face spider which has evolved the same color polymorphism independently on different islands, and the research aims to uncover the molecular basis for the modification. She currently has a large program examining the importance of priority, sequence, abundance, and interaction strengths in determining how biological communities develop, and how this might render them resilient to intrusion by non-native species.

Science communication Gillespie led "Exploring California Biodiversity" (2003-2016), a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded museum and field-based outreach program focused on graduate fellows and high-school/middle-school students in minority-dominated urban schools in the Bay Area. The project forged connections between the university and the surrounding community, enriching K-12 science education, and training graduate students to be better communicators of science. Prior to moving to UC Berkeley she was part of an effort for Using Hawaii's Unique Biota for Biology Education, an NSF program that worked with underrepresented Pacific Island students. She also led or co-led several programs to encourage participation of underrepresented minorities in higher education, including an NSF-funded Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology program that encouraged Pacific Islander undergraduates to undertake field and laboratory research in biology. She was awarded NSF's Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) in Nov 2005. In 2026, Gillespie was awarded the 2025 Molecular Ecology Prize. 2025 Molecular Ecology Prize