Nationality United States Name David Sever | ||
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Residence Hammond, Louisiana, United States Institution Southeastern Louisiana University, Saint Mary's College | ||
David M. Sever is an American herpetologist, histologist, anatomist and reproductive biologist. He has been a professor and department head in the Department of Biological Sciences at Southeastern Louisiana University since 2004, and held the Kenneth Dyson Endowed Professorship in Biological Sciences from 2012 to 2015. He is well known for over 30 years of research on the secondary sexual characteristics of salamanders and more generally on comparative histoanatomy of the urogenital systems of vertebrates. and was recognized as the 2013 Distinguished Herpetologist of the Year by the Herpetologists' League.
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Early life
A native of Canton, Ohio, Sever was interested in dinosaurs at an early age, but, "You couldn't find dinosaurs, but you could find lizards and turtles, things that looked like dinosaurs." His early exposure to herpetology came from the Boy Scouts, and he is an Eagle Scout.
Academic career
Sever earned his Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1974 where he studied the secondary sexual characters of plethodontid salamanders under Harold A. Dundee. He worked at his first academic post at Saint Mary's College (Indiana) from 1974 to 2004, serving as chair from 1980 to 1989. He has been the Department Head of Biological Sciences at Southeastern Louisiana University since 2004.
Research
Stanley E. Trauth, in his capacity as president of the Herpetologist's League, stated that Sever's research contributions were why he was chosen. "Early in his studies, Dave's histological research focused primarily on salamander cloacal anatomy and, specifically, the spermatheca or sperm storage structure in these animals," said Trauth. "His numerous papers on these structures have dominated the international literature on this subject for decades," and "I consider Dave to be today's world leading authority on vertebrate reproductive histology". "He is without question the foremost histo-herpetologist that has ever lived." Sever discovered and described the plethodontid Junaluska salamander (Eurycea junaluska), which lives in the southern Appalachian Mountains.