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Francisco Dallmeier

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Eugenia Kalnay

Great Lives from History: Latinos

Michael A. Mares

by Dennis W. Cheek

American mammalogist

Mares is the world’s leading expert on desert rodents. He is credited with discovering three new species.

Areas of achievement: Science and technology

Early Life

The son of Ernesto Gustavo Mares and Rebecca Gabriela Devine, Michael Allen Mares (MAH-rehs) grew up in New Mexico amid deserts and the life that inhabits them. He enrolled in 1963 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, intending to major in biology as prerequisite to studying medicine. By 1965, he had shifted his focus to zoology, and he went to Mexico on his first research trip a year later to study bats. Despite contracting a near-fatal infection in the bat caves, Mares continued his work in field biology.

Mares married Lynn Ann Brusin, an attorney, on August 27, 1966, after his junior year; their union resulted in two children, Gabriel Andres and Daniel Alejandro. Mares was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, but his military service was deferred because of damage his lungs had suffered from the Mexican infection. After graduating with a bachelor of science degree in biology in 1967, he enrolled in the graduate zoology program at Fort Hays State University in Kansas, receiving his master of science degree in 1969. He then moved to the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his Ph.D. in zoology in 1973, specializing in mammalogy. Mares’s fluency in Spanish and proficiency in Portuguese and French positioned him well for the extensive field trips and research collaborations in South America that would characterize his career. He focused his doctoral thesis on desert rodents’ adaptations to climates, other mammalian communities, and their evolutionary convergence, studying rodent populations in Argentina. During his doctoral studies he became an adjunct professor of zoology at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba (1971) and the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Instituto Miguel Lillo (1972) in Argentina, where he undertook his field work and where his sons were born.

Life’s Work

Mares accepted an appointment as assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973 and became an associate professor in 1981. In 1976, he won a Fulbright-Hays Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, which took him back to Argentina. In 1978, he received a National Chicano Council on Higher Education Research Postdoctoral Fellowship in Arizona, and in 1980, he won a Ford Foundation Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship, which allowed him to serve as a visiting professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona at Tucson in 1980-1981. Throughout this period, he established himself as a global expert on the evolution and adaptation of desert mammals, especially rodents. His work led to his appointment as associate professor of zoology and associate curator of mammals at the Stovall Museum of Science and History at the University of Oklahoma from 1981 to 1985. Mares was elevated to full professor of zoology in 1985 and then named presidential professor of zoology in 2003. He became director of the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma in 1983 and dramatically improved the museum’s facilities, public outreach, and educational programs. When he stepped down as director in 2003, he was designated distinguished research curator of the (newly renamed) Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.

Throughout his career, Mares has specialized in desert and neotropical environments with a particular focus on Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. His work has led to major breakthroughs in the identification of mammalian species and understanding of South American biology, population biology, zoogeography, conservation, and desert ecology. Three different types of living creatures are named in his honor: a Bolivian rodent genus, a subspecies of neotropical bat, and a parasitic mite that is found on neotropical rodents. Mares also has identified and named three new rodent species as part of his lifetime of work exploring desert habitats throughout North America, South America, Egypt, and Iran.

An extremely able administrator, fund-raiser, mentor, teacher, consultant, and adviser, Mares has been appointed to numerous prestigious advisory boards and councils, including the Smithsonian Institution Council (2000), the U.S. Department of the Interior’s advisory board for the Center for Biological Diversity (1994), board of directors of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (1988-1991), numerous panels of the National Science Foundation, as well as national and international scientific boards relating specifically to South America. He has spoken widely as a keynote speaker at major biological meetings and consulted with the World Wildlife Fund and international organizations. He has edited or served on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals in his field, including Journal of Mammalogy, Current Mammalogy, and the Revista Chilena de Historia Natural.

In 2002, Mares was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his contributions to mammal biogeography and conservation and his support of natural history museums as centers for helping to preserve biodiversity. He has received numerous awards for teaching, mentoring, service, and leadership. His involvement in major biological, conservation, and educational efforts in South America has improved public understanding, government leadership, and university teaching of matters related to biodiversity and conservation. In 2002, Mares wrote and produced the film Behind the Rain: The Story of a Museum to chronicle the development of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and help other museums improve their collections, outreach, and impact.

Significance

A world-renowned expert on desert rodents, Mares has made an indelible imprint on the fields of biodiversity, biogeography, and conservation of desert and neotropical ecosystems. He also has set an important example for how natural history museums can improve conservation and biodiversity efforts and advanced Latinos’ formal study of the natural environment.

Further Reading

1 

Mares, Michael A. A Desert Calling: Life in a Forbidding Landscape. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Mares presents an introduction to the world’s major deserts and the life that inhabits them, mixing personal stories with discussion of local politics and policies and the importance of preserving these unique environments.

2 

_______, ed. A University Natural History Museum for the New Millennium. Norman: Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 2001. Discusses the important role natural history museums can play in conservation and how Mares advanced the art and science of such efforts in Oklahoma and globally.

3 

Newton, David E. “Michael A. Mares.” In Latinos in Science, Math, and Professions. New York: Facts On File, 2007. Succinct overview of Mares’s life, career, and importance to the field of mammalogy.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Cheek, Dennis W. "Michael A. Mares." Great Lives from History: Latinos, edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLL_10013240036801001.
APA 7th
Cheek, D. W. (2012). Michael A. Mares. In C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Cheek, Dennis W. "Michael A. Mares." Edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.