Leigh Simmons is an ARC Professorial Fellow and Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia. He studied at the University of Nottingham where he recieved his PhD in 1987. He has held a research fellowship at the University of Liverpool UK before moving to Australia. His research uses both vertebrates and invertebrates to test the predictions and assumptions of theoretical models of sexual selection and life history evolution. Collectively, these research programs seek to determine the direction and strength of selection acting on male and female reproductive strategies, and on the morphological and life history traits that contribute to fitness, from the whole organism to its gametes. He has published more than 280 papers and articles, authored a book on insect sperm competition, and co-edited a volumes on dung beetle ecology and evolution, and insect mating systems. He has had extensive editorial experience with many journals including Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, and is a former Executive Editor of Animal Behaviour. He is currently Editor-in Chief of Behavioral Ecology, and has been an Editor of Advances in the Study of Behavior since 2009. He was elected to the Australian Academy in 2009.