About

Kevin W. Conway, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Texas A&M University Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology and serves as the Curator of Fishes at the Texas A&M University Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections. His research program is focused on the taxonomy, phylogenetic relationships, and comparative anatomy of ray-finned fishes. He has conducted ichthyological field work to collect freshwater and marine fishes across North, Central, and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Dr. Conway has published 100 scientific papers, including the description of 43 new species and 6 new genera of fishes. He holds a B.Sc. (Hon.) in Zoology from the University of Glasgow, an M.Sc. in Advanced Methods in Taxonomy and Biodiversity from Imperial College London, and a Ph.D. in Biology from Saint Louis University. His expertise encompasses ichthyology, taxonomy, phylogenetics, and comparative anatomy.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Evolutionary biology
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Zoology
• Anatomy
• Geography
• Multimedia
• World Wide Web
• Developmental psychology
• Telecommunications
• Psychology
• Cartography
• Data science
• Fishery
• Neuroscience

Selected publications

• A new species of the live-bearing fish genus Poeciliopsis from northern Mexico (Cyprinodontiformes, Poeciliidae)

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A new generic name for the " Lepadichthys " lineatus complex with a rediagnosis of Discotrema, a senior synonym of Unguitrema, and comments on their phylogenetic relationships (Gobiesocidae: Diademichthyinae)

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Reservoir proximity explains long-term transformation of riverine fish assemblage structure and function

  Scientific Reports · 2026-04-06

  articleOpen access

  Dams and their associated reservoirs have become so ubiquitous on the world's riverscapes that only 23% of rivers now flow freely to the ocean. These artificial structures have known ecological consequences, but ecological studies often suffer from a lack of historical baseline data and uncertainty regarding the degree to which concepts are transferable among altered river systems. We reviewed historical fish assemblage survey data collected over 373 km of the upper Sabine River, Texas, USA during 1954-1955, prior to construction of large reservoirs at the upstream and downstream extents of the study area. We then repeated surveys using identical methods in 2023 after reservoirs were in place for multiple decades. The resulting dataset provided opportunity to measure impoundment-driven deviations from historical baseline conditions and test a suite of hypotheses centered on fish assemblage changes across a gradient of proximities (i.e., distances) from reservoirs. We found support for the proximity replacement hypothesis in which fish assemblages nearest to reservoirs experience the highest temporal beta diversity; support for the longitudinal recovery gradient hypothesis in which relative abundance of periodic life history strategists returns to a natural baseline with greater downstream distance from dam tailwaters; support for the proximity host loss hypothesis in which fishes that serve as hosts to Unionid mussels decline in reservoir tailwaters; and support for the proximity host gain hypothesis in which fishes that serve as hosts to Unionid mussels increase in the river-reservoir interface upstream of a dam. This work advances knowledge of ecological consequences associated with dam construction by revealing that concepts developed using space-for-time substitutions (i.e., without historical baseline information) remain pertinent when tested against historical benchmarks and these same concepts are applicable to unstudied systems.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Molecular Systematics of Redband Trout from Genome-Wide DNA Sequencing Substantiates the Description of a New Taxon (Salmonidae: Oncorhynchus mykiss calisulat) from the McCloud River

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-17

  datasetOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• A new species of Psilorhynchus (Teleostei: Psilorhynchidae) from the Ataran River Basin, Myanmar, with comments on the generic name Psilorhynchoides.

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A new species of sea urchin associating clingfish of the genus Dellichthys from New Zealand (Teleostei, Gobiesocidae)

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A new species of Psilorhynchus (Teleostei: Psilorhynchidae) from the Ataran River Basin, Myanmar, with comments on the generic name Psilorhynchoides

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Corrigendum: Pinion AK, Kim D, Dolan EP, Portnoy DS, Voelker G, Conway KW (2025) Revision of Notropis stramineus (Cope, 1865), descriptions of three new species and comments on the monophyly of Miniellus Jordan, 1882 (Pisces: Cypriniformes: Leuciscidae). Vertebrate Zoology 75: 699–755. https://doi.org/10.3897/vz.75.e156077

  Vertebrate Zoology · 2026-03-11

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• ‘ On Psilorhynchus sucatio and P. nudithoracicus’, the sequel: Unnecessary and unscientific names lead to rapid synonymization and taxonomic time wasting-A response to Arunachalam et al. (2018)

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• A New Genus and Species of Clingfish (Teleostei: Gobiesocidae) from Western Australia

  The Catalogue of Life · 2026-02-16

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Biological Collections: Crucial upgrades to specimen storage, organization, and database management at the rapidly growing Texas A&M Collection of Fishes

  NSF · $205k · 2021–2026

• Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: oVert: Open Exploration of Vertebrate Diversity in 3D

  NSF · $130k · 2017–2023

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO THE PERFORMANCE AND EVOLUTION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE SUCTORIAL DISKS IN FISHES

  NSF · $282k · 2013–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Adam P. Summers

  Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture

  32 shared

• Ralf Britz

  29 shared

• Glenn I. Moore

  Australian Museum

  18 shared

• Richard L. Mayden

  Saint Louis University

  15 shared

• Lukas Rüber

  Natural History Museum of Bern

  13 shared

• Hiroyuki Motomura

  Kagoshima University

  11 shared

• Amanda K. Pinion

  Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

  11 shared

• Kole M. Kubicek

  Lamar University

  11 shared

Education

• Other, Zoology

  University of Glasgow

• M.S., Advanced Methods in Taxonomy and Biodiversity

  Imperial College London

• Ph.D., Biology

  Saint Louis University