E.O. Wilson

Edward O. Wilson was a distinguished biologist in the Biology faculty at Harvard University. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Alabama and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1955. Immediately after obtaining his doctorate, he joined the Harvard faculty and served there for over four decades until his retirement in 1997. He remained actively engaged as Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator in Entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology until his death in 2021. As a graduate student, Wilson was elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows, enabling a year-long expedition to study ants on islands throughout Melanesia. His career at Harvard spanned six decades, marked by profound contributions to science.

Wilson specialized in myrmecology and pioneered research in entomology, evolutionary biology, sociobiology, island biogeography, and biodiversity conservation. Key early works include a publication on character displacement with William Brown in 1956 and the taxon cycle in 1961. He co-authored the influential "The Theory of Island Biogeography" with Robert MacArthur in 1967, a foundational text in population biology. Notable publications also include "The Insect Societies" (1971), "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis" (1975), "On Human Nature" (1978, Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction), "Biophilia" (1984), "The Ants" co-authored with Bert Hölldobler (1990, Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction), "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge" (1998), and "Pheidole in the New World" (2003), a monograph describing 341 new ant species. He authored over 30 books and hundreds of scientific papers. Wilson founded the Encyclopedia of Life in 2007 to create a webpage for every species and proposed the Half-Earth Project, advocating that 50 percent of the planet be set aside for conservation. He engaged politicians, celebrities, and religious leaders in conservation efforts. Among more than 100 awards, he received the U.S. National Medal of Science, Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Japan’s International Prize for Biology, Prix de l’Institut de la Vie, Italy’s Presidential Medal, Gold Medal of the World Wildlife Fund, Catalonia International Prize, and King Faisal International Prize for Science.