Alan Grafen is a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 ethologist

Ethology

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology....

 and evolutionary biologist. He currently teaches and undertakes research at St John's College, Oxford

St John's College, Oxford

__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...

. Along with regular contributions to scientific journals, Grafen is known publicly for his work as co-editor (with Mark Ridley

Mark Ridley (zoologist)

Mark Ridley is a British zoologist and writer on evolution.He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge in the 1980s , was a professor at Emory University, Atlanta, U.S.A., and - as of 2005 - works at the Department of Zoology, Oxford University...

) of the 2006 festschrift

Festschrift

In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...

 Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think

Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think

Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think is a festschrift of 25 essays written in recognition of the life and work of Richard Dawkins. It was published in 2006, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Selfish Gene. A wide range of topics are covered from...

, honouring the achievements of his colleague and former academic advisor. He has worked extensively in the field of Biological game theory

Game theory

Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...

, and, in 1990, devised a model showing that Zahavi

Amotz Zahavi

Amotz Zahavi is an Israeli evolutionary biologist, a Professor Emeritus at the Zoology Department of Tel Aviv University, and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel...

's well-known Handicap principle

Handicap principle

The handicap principle is a hypothesis originally proposed in 1975 by biologist Amotz Zahavi to explain how evolution may lead to "honest" or reliable signaling between animals who have an obvious motivation to bluff or deceive each other...

could theoretically exist in natural populations.