Stuart Pimm


Stuart Leonard Pimm is an American-British biologist and theoretical ecologist specializing in scientific research of biodiversity and conservation biology.

Education

Pimm was born in Derbyshire, United Kingdom. He was educated at the University of Oxford and was awarded a PhD in Ecology from New Mexico State University in 1974.

Research

Pimm is currently Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. He is an acknowledged authority in the field of conservation biology, recognized with several awards including the Heineken Prize and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Pimm has collaborated with a wide range of other scientists, including Robert May, Peter H. Raven, Joel E. Cohen, George Sugihara and Jared Diamond. His work has examined the mathematical properties of food webs and indicated that complex food webs should be less stable than simple food webs.

Publications

Pimm is a prolific writer. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles, including several in the scientific journals Nature and Science". He has published several books including, A Scientist Audits the Earth and he has published articles in popular science publications such as Scientific American. Up until mid-2019, he was a regular contributor to the National Geographic blog.

Awards

Pimm is a Master of Ecological Conservation with The Beijing DeTao Masters Academy, a high-level, multi-disciplined, application-oriented higher education institution in Shanghai, China.
Pimm was awarded the 2019 International Cosmos Prize in recognition of his research and conservation efforts, as well as his role in mentoring students.
A new wasp species from the cloud forests of Colombia's tropical Andes has been named Dolichomitus pimmi in honor of Pimm and his conservation efforts in that region.

SavingSpecies

In 2010, Pimm founded a non-profit organization called SavingSpecies. The organization was dissolved in July 2019.
No official announcement or explanation for the dissolution was provided by Pimm or the organization.