Marvalee Hendricks Wake (born July 31, 1939) is an American zoologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for her research in the biology of caecilians (limbless amphibians) and vertebrate development and evolution.
[1][4] Wake is known as an expert in caecilians—a relatively little-known group of limbless amphibians—and her research has included the developmental biology, evolution, reproduction, and anatomy of these creatures.
Biologist Brian K. Hall writes: "Consistently, passionately and effectively, Marvalee Wake has advocated the teaching of morphology as a multifaceted modern science that informs evolutionary biology and evolutionary theory, and is foundational to integrative biology.
[8] Wake has published or co-published over 200 journal articles and book chapters, edited a revision of the textbook Hyman's Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy (originally written by Libbie H. Hyman), and co-edited a general biology textbook (Biology, 1979) as well as the scholarly book The Origin and Evolution of Larval Forms (1999).
In 2014 she received the Henry S. Fitch Award for Excellence in Herpetology from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.