| Authorised form of name | Wilson; Edward Osborne (1929-2021); biologist and myrmecologist |
| Dates | 1929-2021 |
| Nationality | American |
| Place of birth | Birmingham, Alabama, USA |
| Date of birth | 10 June 1929 |
| Place of death | Burlington, Massachusetts, USA |
| Date of death | 26 December 2021 |
| Research field | Evolution |
| Sociobiology |
| Biogeography |
| Entomology |
| Ecology |
| Natural history |
| Biology |
| Activity | Education: University of Alabama (B.S 1949; M.S 1950); Harvard University (PhD 1955)
Career:
Raised in Southern US; blinded himself in his right eye in a fishing accident (1936); member of Harvard’s biology and zoology faculties (1956-1976); Frank B. Baird Professor of Science (1976-94); Mellon Professor of the Sciences (1990-93); and Pellegrino University Professor (1994-97; professor emeritus from 1997); curator in entomology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (1973-97).
Awards/Medals:
United States National Medal of Science 1977
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 1979
Tyler E. Prize in Ecology 1984
Memberships:
U.S. National Academy of Science
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Philosophical Society
The German Academy of Sciences
Honorary Life Membership of the American Genetic Association 1981
British Ecological Society 1983 |
| Membership category | Foreign Member |
| Date of election | 28/06/1990 |
| Age at election | 61 |
| Relationships | Parents: Inez Linnette Freeman and Edward Osborne Wilson Sr.
Spouse: Irene Kelley (m. 1955) (d 7 August 2021).
Children: Catherine I. Gargill. |
| OtherInfo | Foremost authority on the social behaviour of insects and a founder of the theory of island biogeography and the subdiscipline of socio-biology
World's leading authority on ants. His work on classification of ants resulted in revisions of much of the Pacific fauna, and his field work in Melanesia and Asia led him to an interest in biogeography and species formation. He he traced the evolution of ant castes by alteration of allometric curves and applied linear programming models to the "ergonomics" of caste systems in social insects generally. |
| Source | Encyclopedia Britannica, E. O. Wilson [URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-O-Wilson; last accessed: 06/03/2026]
National Library of Medicine, Edward Osborne Wilson, Naturalist (1929–2021), [URL: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8812546/; last accessed: 06/03/2026]
Wikipedia, E. O. Wilson, [URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson; last accessed: 06/03/2026]
Edward Osborne Wilson obituary [URL: https://officeofthesecretary.fas.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum2291/files/2024-11/Wilson%20Memorial%20Minute_2023_05_02.pdf; last accessed: 06/03/2026] |
| Code | NA3882 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/004958 | Wilson, Edward Osborne | 1991 |
| EC/1990/46 | Wilson, Edward Osborne: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1984 |