Plenary Speaker

Simon A. Levin

Professor Simon A. Levin received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland. At Cornell University 1965-1992, he was Chair of the Section of Ecology and Systematics, and then Director of the Ecosystems Research Center, the Center for Environmental Research and the Program on Theoretical and Computational Biology, as well as Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences (1985-1992). Since 1992, he has been at Princeton University, where he is currently George M. Moffett Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for BioComplexity. He retains an adjunct professorship at Cornell and is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at UC Irvine.

His research interests are in understanding how macroscopic patterns and processes are maintained at the level of ecosystems and the biosphere, in terms of ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that operate primarily at the level of organisms; in infectious diseases; in the interface between basic and applied ecology, especially sustainability; and most recently in exploring ecosystems and economic systems as complex adaptive systems, and the features that govern their robustness. Professor Levin has mentored more than 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and has published widely, including the popular book Fragile Dominion. He is the editor of the influential Princeton Guide to Ecology and the landmark Encyclopedia of Biodiversity.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a Foreign Member of the Istituto Veneto. He is a University Fellow of Resources for the Future, a Fellow of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, an Academic Fellow of the Strategy Institute of the Boston Consulting Group, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Professor Levin chaired the Governing Council for IIASA for more than five years and is currently affiliated with the U.S. National Member Organization. He serves on the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute; as Vice-Chair for Mathematics of the Committee of Concerned Scientists; and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Moore Foundation. He is a former president of the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Mathematical Biology, and a past Chair of the Board of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics. Professor Levin won the MacArthur Award (1988), the Distinguished Service Citation (1998), and the Eminent Ecologist Award (2010) from the Ecological Society of America; the Okubo Award of the Society for Mathematical Biology and the Japanese Society for Theoretical Biology; and the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute for Biological Sciences. He received the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004), the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (2005) by the Inamori Foundation, and the Margalef Prize (2010) of the Government of Catalonia. He received honorary doctorates from Eastern Michigan University, Whittier College, and Michigan State University.

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