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David Mark Hillis (born December 21, 1958 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is the Alfred W. Roark Centennial...

David Mark Hillis (born December 21, 1958 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is the Alfred W. Roark Centennial Professor of Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a prominent American evolutionary biologist. He is best known for his studies of molecular evolution, phylogeny, and vertebrate systematics. David Hillis was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1958, the son of William Hillis, an epidemiologist, and Aryge Briggs Hillis, a biostatistician. Hillis lived his early years in Denmark, Belgian Congo, India, and the United States, where he developed his interests in biology and biodiversity. His brother is computer scientist W. Daniel Hillis, , and his sister is Argye E. Hillis, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University. In 1980 Hillis graduated from Baylor University with a B.S. degree in biology, followed in 1983, 1984, and 1985 with M.S., Ph.M., and Ph.D. degrees in Biological Science from the University of Kansas, specializing in molecular evolution and systematics. During this time Hillis developed molecular approaches for reconstructing the evolutionary history of organisms, or phylogeny, with a particular emphasis on the relationships of amphibians. He also