Passion
Edward O. Wilson, the Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus, was born in Alabama in June 1929. A boyhood immersed in nature and the world of insects provided an education he would build on through high school and at the University of Alabama, and then during graduate studies at Harvard, where he’s been since receiving his Ph.D. in 1955.
Wilson is probably best known for his groundbreaking insights on ants, but his research has extended deep into other realms of science, sometimes with provocative results. His theory of island biogeography, written with Robert MacArthur, examined how species rise and fall on isolated islands, both those surrounded by water and, more importantly for conservation today, habitat islands surrounded by different landscapes. His book on the biological roots of behavior, “Sociobiology,” touched off an academic row in the mid-1970s.
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