Joseph L. Graves Jr. (born 1955) is an American evolutionary biologist and geneticist. He is a professor of biological science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and a former associate dean for research at the Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, which is jointly administered by North Carolina A & T State University and UNC Greensboro. His past research has included an examination of the evolution and physiological performance in Drosophila, a genus of small flies often called fruit flies. His work includes the genomics of adaptation, as well as the response of bacteria to metallic nanoparticles. A particular application of this research has been to the evolutionary theory of aging. Drawing upon his background in evolutionary biology and genetics, he has also written two books that address myths and theories of race in American society. Graves has made appearances in six documentary films on these topics. He has been a principal investigator on grants from the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Arizona Disease Research Commission, and is a Fellow of the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Early life and education Graves was born in 1955 and received his B.A. in biology from Oberlin College in 1977 and his PhD from Wayne State University in 1988. Childhood experiences shaped Graves' interest in race and racism: "My parents were poor. They didn't know how to read. I had to teach myself how to read," he says. "The school system of my home was racially biased. When I was in kindergarten teachers wanted to declare me mentally retarded so that I could be placed in a special education curriculum. The regular curriculum had a tracking system," Graves continues. "For no apparent reason, all the black kids ended up in the lower track." But, by graduation day, years later, Graves had risen to be among the highest ranked students at his high school. He accepted an academic scholarship to attend Oberlin College and graduated from there with an A.B. in Biology in 1977. His next two years were spent at the Institute for Tropical Disease at the University of Lowell. He then earned a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to begin his PhD work at the University of Michigan in 1979. He completed his PhD in Evolutionary, Environmental, and Systematic Biology at Wayne State University in 1988. This work afforded him