Mohamed Noor is the Interim Dean of Arts & Sciences and a Professor in the Biology Department at Duke University (formerly holding the rotating titles of Earl D. McLean Professor, department chair, and dean of natural sciences). His specialties include evolution, genetics and genomics. Later, his research team has focused on understanding variation in recombination rate within and between species, and its impact on DNA sequence variation. In 2008, he was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal from the Linnean Society of London.