Naomi Pierce

Naomi E. Pierce is the Sidney A. and John H. Hessel Professor of Biology in Harvard University's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. She also serves as Curator of Lepidoptera in the Museum of Comparative Zoology and as a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows. Pierce earned her B.S. in biology from Yale University in 1976 and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1983. Her academic career includes appointments as Research Lecturer and NATO Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 1986, and as Assistant and Associate Professor of Biology at Princeton University from 1986 to 1990. She joined Harvard in 1990, where she has conducted extensive research and mentored hundreds of undergraduates, Ph.D. students, and postdoctoral fellows.

Pierce's research specializes in the behavioral ecology of species interactions, encompassing the ecology and evolution of symbiotic associations such as those between lycaenid butterflies and ants, insect-plant interactions, and third-party fungal and bacterial symbioses in ant plants. Her lab employs molecular systematics, field ecology, laboratory experiments, and museum surveys to investigate topics including the evolution of caterpillar-ant associations in Lepidoptera, sensory perception and signaling in butterflies, and the reconstruction of insect phylogenies for ants, bees, and butterflies. She is the author of numerous scientific papers and an edited book. Key publications include "Animals in a bacterial world, a new imperative for the life sciences" (2013), "Phylogeny of the ants: diversification in the age of angiosperms" (2006), "The ecology and evolution of ant association in the Lycaenidae (Lepidoptera)" (2002), "A comprehensive phylogeny of butterflies reveals their evolutionary history, ancestral hostplants, and biogeographic origins" (2023), and "Trans-Atlantic dispersal and introgression explain Holarctic disjunct distributions in Vanessa butterflies" (2025). Pierce has received the MacArthur Fellowship (1988), a Fulbright Fellowship, election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution (2025) for her contributions to evolutionary studies of species interactions and insect phylogenies.

Professional Email: npierce@oeb.harvard.edu