{{Short description|American entomologist (born 1959)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2018}} '''Karl M. Kjer''' (born November 19, 1959) is an American entomologist, taxonomist, and molecular biologist.
==Background== In 1992, Kjer received his Ph.D. in entomology at the University of Minnesota. During his post-doctorate at BYU, he studied homology on ribosomal RNA. He started teaching at Rutgers University in 1996.<ref>{{cite web |title=6th International Barcode of Life conference |url=http://dnabarcodes2015.org/program/presenters/ |date=August 2015}}</ref> In 2015, he accepted an endowed Chair in Insect Systematics at University of California, Davis, but resigned in 2016 citing "health and family reasons."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20171202144707/http://www.caes.ucdavis.edu/connect/giving/impacts/endowed-chairs/files/pdfs/SchlingerKjer.pdf Resignation: Dec. 2, 2017]</ref> In 2017, Kjer was convicted of one count of invasion of privacy after secretly recording a 19-year-old woman while she showered in his home.<ref>{{cite news |author=Luke Nozicka |title=Man who secretly filmed teen in shower avoids jail |url=http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2017/09/no_jail_for_man_accused_of_secretly_videotaping_te.html |newspaper=True Jersey |date=September 12, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Hannah Holzer |title=Former UC Davis professor filmed individuals showering without their consent, stored footage on university-owned hard drives|url=https://theaggie.org/2018/06/07/former-uc-davis-professor-filmed-individuals-showering-without-their-consent-stored-footage-on-university-owned-hard-drives/ |newspaper=The California Aggie |date=June 7, 2018}}</ref> He retired from academia in 2017, and now pursues a career in freelance writing and consulting.<ref>[https://umn.academia.edu/KarlKjer/CurriculumVitae Karl Kjer Curriculum Vitae]</ref>
==Research== Kjer studied Trichoptera phylogeny, and was a contributor to the Trichoptera Barcode of Life Database. The database is part of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, a project which hopes to collect barcodes for all of life.<ref>{{cite web |title=CBOL |url=https://www.ibol.org/phase1/cbol/ |publisher=International Barcode of Life Project |year=2023}}</ref> He showed that substitution rates are the most important factor in site-specific rate estimation, and that codon partitioning is a poor method of differential weighting.<ref>{{cite journal| pmc=1796853 | pmid=17254354 | doi=10.1186/1471-2148-7-8 | volume=7 | title=Site specific rates of mitochondrial genomes and the phylogeny of eutheria | year=2007 | journal=BMC Evol Biol | page=8 | author=Kjer KM, Honeycutt RL | doi-access=free }}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kjer, Karl M.}} Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences alumni Category:American taxonomists Category:American entomologists Category:Brigham Young University alumni Category:Rutgers University faculty Category:University of California, Davis faculty Category:American molecular biologists