| 1 | Name: | Dr. Simon Asher Levin | |
| Institution: | Princeton University | ||
| Year Elected: | 2003 | ||
| Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 205. Microbiology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1941 | ||
Simon Levin received his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Maryland in 1964. In 1965 he joined the faculty of Cornell University and remained for more than twenty-five years, serving as the Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences, director of the Ecosystem Research Center, and director of the Center for Environmental Research. He was also director of the Princeton Environmental Institute, 1993-98. At Princeton University since 1992, he is currently James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. In addition, since 2001 he has served as director of the Center for Biocomplexity and associated faculty of the Princeton Environmental Institute. Simon Levin has been the leader in developing the theoretical foundation for the study of ecology and evolution of populations in heterogeneous environments. Implications and extensions of his work have been among the most influential in ecology and conservation biology. Alone and jointly with others, he developed the theory of evolution of populations in heterogeneous environments, and of implications for biodiversity. This led to his most far-reaching contributions, on problems of scale, self-organization of ecosystems, and mechanisms for extrapolation across scales. In recent years, has been a leader in sustainability science, the interface between ecology and economics. Dr. Levin received the MacArthur Award from the Ecological Society of America in 1988; the Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award from INTERCOL in 1994; the "Most cited paper in the field of Ecology and Environment for the 1990s" from the Institute for Scientific Information in 2000; the Outstanding Paper in the Discipline of Landscape Ecology Award for 2001 from the U.S. Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology; and the 1st Okubo Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. He also received the Heineken Environmental Prize of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science in 2004, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences in 2005, and the National Medal of Science in 2015. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Instituto Veneto. He also served as president of the Ecological Society of America and the Society of Mathematical Biology. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003. | |||