Simon Levin

Position
James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor | EEB; Director, Center for BioComplexity
Role
Theoretical Biology and Evolution
Office Phone
Office
102 Guyot Hall
Bio/Description

Simon A. Levin is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University and the Director of the Center for BioComplexity in the Princeton Environmental Institute.  His research examines the structure and functioning of ecosystems, the dynamics of disease, and the coupling of ecological and socioeconomic systems.  Levin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a Foreign Member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, and the Istituto Lombardo (Milan).  He has over 500 publications and is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Biodiversity and the Princeton Guide to Ecology.  Levin’s awards include: the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, Margalef Prize for Ecology, the Ecological Society of America’s MacArthur and Eminent Ecologist Awards, the Luca Pacioli Prize (Ca’Foscari University of Venice), the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the National Medal of Science, and most recently, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology.

 

Selected Publications

Cooney, D.B., Levin, S.A., Mori, Y., and J.B. Plotkin.  2022.  Evolutionary dynamics within and among competing groups.  PNAS 120(20): e2216186120.  

Evolutionary dynamics within and among competing groups

Dasgupta, P., and S. Levin.  2023.  Economic factors underlying biodiversity loss.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 378(1881): 20220197.

Economic factors underlying biodiversity loss

Hagstrom, G.I., and S.A. Levin.  2023.  “Phase transitions and the theory of early warning indicators for critical transitions.” In How Worlds Collapse: What History, Systems, and Complexity Can Teach Us about Our Modern World and Fragile Future, eds. M. Centeno, P. Callahan, P. Larcey, and T. Patterson, 358-374.  New York: Routledge. (Link is for the book). 

How Worlds Collapse
What History, Systems, and Complexity Can Teach Us About Our Modern World and Fragile Future

Leonard, N., and S.A. Levin.  2022.  Collective intelligence as a public good.  Collective Intelligence 1(1).

Collective intelligence as a public good

Levin, S.A., and E.U. Weber.  2023.  Polarization and the psychology of collectives.  Perspectives on Psychological Science.  

Polarization and the Psychology of Collectives

Xu, L., Wang, J., Patterson, D., and S.A. Levin.  2023.  Non-equilibrium early-warning signals for critical transitions in ecological systems.  PNAS 120(5): e2218663120. 

Non-equilibrium early-warning signals for critical transitions in ecological systems