Simon Scarpetta

Simon Scarpetta is an evolutionary biologist, paleontologist, and herpetologist with a particular appreciation for lizards and salamanders. He received a PhD in Geosciences from The University of Texas at Austin in 2021, and completed an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology at the University of California, Berkeley in 2023. Much of his work has focused on documenting biodiversity both living and extinct, and his current research uses phylogenomic and biogeographic methods to address the evolutionary history of iguanas, horned lizards, dragon lizards, and their relatives.

At USF, Simon teaches many courses including Conservation Biology, Ecology, Herpetology, Quantitative Methods, Climate Science, and Understanding Our Environment. He aims to  equip future environmental managers, researchers, and policy-makers with skills to tackle major earth system issues such as biodiversity loss and anthropogenic climate change. Simon is passionate about working with and teaching both undergraduate and graduate students and researchers, and has supervised Masters Projects for many students in the MSEM program.

• Evolutionary biology
• Herpetology
• Paleontology
• Ecology
• Conservation

• Phylogenomics
• Historical biogeography
• Divergence dating
• Paleoecology
• Taxonomy

• The University of Texas at Austin, PhD in Geosciences, 2021
• Stanford University, BS in Biology (Specialization in Ecology and Evolution), 2014

•  
• NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley
• Graduate teaching assistant, The University of Texas at Austin
• Senior conservation technician, Stanford University Conservation Program

• Dean's Award for Faculty Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Work, University of San Francisco, 2025
• Jackson School of Geosciences Best Graduate Paper Award Winner, The University of Texas at Austin, 2021    
• NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology, Rules of Life Program, National Science Foundation, 2021
• Graduate Student Paper Competition Award, Texas Academy of Science, 2019

• Scarpetta SG, Karin BR, Corl A, McGuire JA. The evolutionary history of dragon lizards (Squamata: Agamidae) revealed by phylogenomics. 2025. Systematic Biology syaf088.
• Scarpetta SG, Fisher RN, Karin BR, Niukula J, Corl A, Jackman TR, McGuire JA. 2025. Iguanas rafted more than 8000 km from North America to Fiji. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122(12). 
• Krone IW, Karin BR, Amini SS, Frederick JH, Scarpetta SG, Hamidy A, Laksono TW, Arida E, Arifin U, Bach BH, Bos C, Jennings C, Riyanto A, Stubbs AL, McGuire JA. 2025. Elevational surveys of Sulawesi herpetofauna 2: Gunung Katopasa on the Eastern Peninsula of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. PeerJ 13:e20024. 
• Eshelman R, Bell CJ, Graham RW, Semken Jr HA, Withnell CB, Scarpetta SG, James HF, Godfrey SJ, Hodnett J-P, Grady FV. 2025. Middle Pleistocene Cumberland Bone Cave Local Fauna, Allegany County, Maryland: A Comprehensive Revision and Paleoecological Interpretation of the Irvingtonian of the Middle Appalachians, USA. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 108. xiv+305 pp.
• Scarpetta SG. 2020. Combined-evidence analyses of ultraconserved elements and morphological data: an empirical example in iguanian lizards. Biology Letters 16(8), 20200356.

• New York Times
• NPR
• UC Berkeley press release
• Scientific American
• Washington Post