Biography
Diamond was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Bessarabian Jewish family. His father Louis K. Diamond was a physician and his mother Flora Kaplan a teacher, musician, and linguist. He attended the Roxbury Latin School and earned an A.B. from Harvard College in 1958 and a PhD in physiology and membrane biophysics from the University of Cambridge in 1961.
After graduating from Cambridge, Diamond returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow until 1965, and, in 1968, became Professor of Physiology at UCLA Medical School. While in his twenties, he developed a second, parallel, career in ornithology and ecology, specialising in New Guinea and nearby islands. Then in his fifties, Diamond developed a third career in environmental history and became Professor of Geography at UCLA, his current position. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1999 and an honorary doctorate by Westfield State University in 2009.
Diamond is married to Marie Diamond (née Marie Nabel Cohen), granddaughter of Polish politician Edward Werner, and has two adult sons.
Read more about this topic: Jared Diamond
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