A three-time chair of the Department of Biology, John Bonner served on the Princeton faculty for 42 years and remained active teaching and researching for more than two decades after transferring to emeritus status in 1990.
Primary among Bonner’s accomplishments were his discoveries about the behavior of slime molds, which are found in soils throughout the world. He led the way in making Dictyostelium discoideuma a model organism central to examining some of the major questions in experimental biology.
“John was a world-leading scientist in the field of organismal evolution and development,” said Lars Hedin chair of EEB. “His studies of the curious cellular organization and ecology of slime molds are classic contributions to science, and led the way forward in the field of organismal cooperation and evolution.”