Rate My Professor Frank Anderson

Frank E. Anderson serves as Professor and Director of the School of Biological Sciences at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, within the Department of Zoology. He earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He completed postdoctoral training from January 1997 to August 1999 at the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Anderson joined Southern Illinois University in August 1999 as Associate Professor of Zoology and was promoted to Professor in Biological Sciences in 2021.

Anderson's research examines invertebrate phylogeny and phylogeography, emphasizing extremes of molluscan and annelidan radiations such as cephalopods, pulmonate gastropods invading land, and clitellate annelids in freshwater and terrestrial environments. Active projects involve cephalopod phylogenetics and phylogenomics, clitellate phylogenomics and molecular evolution, and biodiversity, ecology, and phylogeny of eastern North American land snails and earthworms through the SUPERB scholarship program. His interests include invertebrate zoology, molecular systematics, molecular evolution, and malacology. He holds an editorial position with the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists.

With 164 publications and over 2,000 citations documented on ResearchGate, Anderson's work has shaped systematic biology. Key publications include "Annelida and Arthropoda are not sister taxa: a phylogenetic analysis of spiralian metazoan morphology" (Eernisse et al., 1992, Systematic Biology), "Phylogeny and historical biogeography of the loliginid squids" (2000, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution), "Phylogenomic analyses reveal a Paleozoic radiation and support a freshwater origin for clitellate annelids" (Erséus et al., 2020, Zoologica Scripta), "Evolution of ammoniacal buoyancy within oegopsid squids and its relationship with depth" (Pratt and Anderson, 2025, Journal of Molluscan Studies), and "DNA barcoding suggests sexual and asexual Campeloma decisum (Say, 1817) (Gastropoda: Viviparidae) are different taxa" (Bower et al., 2025, American Malacological Bulletin). His contributions advance understanding of metazoan evolution and biodiversity.