The 2005 Laureates / Basic Sciences Category / Biological Sciences (Evolution, Behavior, Ecology, Environment)
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Simon Asher Levin

U.S.A. / April 22, 1941
Ecologist; Professor at Princeton University

"Establishment of the field of spatial ecology and the proposition of the biosphere as a "complex adaptive system""
Professor Levin developed diverse methods of analysis for the spatial aspects of population and ecosystem processes, and founded a field of "spatial ecology". He promoted the view that the biosphere is a "complex adaptive system", and made many fundamental contributions to biological conservation and ecosystem management.

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-present
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
Members:
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.
2005
Strategic interactions in multi-institutional epidemics of antibiotic resistance, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 102: 3153-3158 (Smith, D. L. , Levin, S. A. and Laxminarayan, R.).