|
2005 Kyoto Prize Laureates
Basic Sciences Category
Prize Field: Biological Sciences
(Evolution, Behavior, Ecology, Environment)
"For the establishment of the field of spatial ecology and the proposition of the biosphere as a 'complex adaptive system.'"
Professor Simon Asher Levin
Date of Birth: April 22, 1941
Nationality: U.S.A.
Background: Professor Levin created the field of Spatial Ecology by using mathematical models to understand complex patterns of the biosphere that traditional ecology had difficulty explaining. In his famous early study, Professor Levin demonstrated the unexpected fact that high biodiversity in a marine reef ecosystem could be maintained by moderate disturbance, and that expanding space permits the coexistence of mutually exclusive species in the same ecosystem. Further, Professor Levin's mathematical models demonstrated that analysis of a small region reveals approaches that can be applied to the analysis of phenomena in a larger region. These mathematical models now serve as useful guidelines for environmental protection and are used in a wide range of environmental management applications. His 1999 book, Fragile Dominion, shows that biodiversity has a fragile foundation. In the book, he urges us to look more deeply into these issues and calls for courageous action, given how much humans have benefited from biodiversity and what must be done if these benefits are to be preserved.
| Brief Biography |
| 1941 |
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. |
| 1961 |
Johns Hopkins University, B.A. (Mathematics) |
| 1964 |
University of Maryland, Ph.D. (Mathematics) |
| 1965-1970 |
Assistant Professor, Cornell University |
| 1971-1977 |
Associate Professor, Cornell University |
| 1977-1992 |
Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University |
| 1980-1987 |
Director, Ecosystems Research Center, Cornell University |
| 1987-1990 |
Director, Center for Environmental Research, Cornell University |
| 1992-present |
George M. Moffett Professor of Biology, Princeton University |
| 1993-1998 |
Director, Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University |
| 2001-presen |
Director, Center for Biocomplexity, Princeton University |
| Selected Awards and Honors |
| 1988 |
MacArthur Award, Ecological Society of America |
| 2001 |
Okubo Lifetime Achievement Award, Japanese Association for Mathematical Biology/Society for Mathematical Biology |
| 2004 |
A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| Member |
National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| Selected Works |
| 1974 |
Disturbance, patch formation, and community structure, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 71: 2744-47 (with Paine, R. T.). |
| 1992 |
The problem of pattern and scale in ecology, Ecology 73: 1943-1967. |
| 1997 |
Mathematical and computational challenges in population biology and ecosystem science, Science 275: 334-343 (with Grenfell, B. T., Hastings, A. and Perelson, A. S.). |
| 1999 |
Fragile Dominion: Complexity and the Commons. Perseus Books Group, Reading, MA. Pp. 239. |
| 2005 |
Strategic interactions in multi-institutional epidemics of antibiotic resistance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 102: 3153-3158 (with Smith, D. L. and Laxminarayan, R.). |
|
|
