Published On: 04.16.17 | 

By: 9316

On this day in Alabama history: Edward O. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize

April 16 feature

Edward O. Wilson, 2003. (Jim Harrison, Wikimedia)

April 16, 1979

World-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for On Human Nature. Born in Birmingham, Wilson is known as the “father of biodiversity” and is the world’s leading authority on myrmecology, the study of ants. He and mathematical biologist Robert MacArthur are credited with creating the theory of island biogeography, the foundation of conservation area design, and Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize a second time in 1991 with The Ants. Throughout his life, he has won more than 100 international awards, including the National Medal of Science and the International Prize for Biology from Japan. Wilson is currently a university research professor emeritus at Harvard.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.