George Evelyn Hutchinson
Award Name : National Medal of Science
Year of Award : 1991
Award for : Biology
Location : Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
George Evelyn Hutchinson was an American ecologist sometimes described as the "father of modern ecology." He contributed for more than sixty years to the fields of limnology, systems ecology, radiation ecology, entomology, genetics, biogeochemistry, a mathematical theory of population growth, art history, philosophy, religion, and anthropology. Hutchinson was born on January 30, 1903 in Cambridge, United Kingdom to Arthur and Evaline D. Hutchinson. Hutchinson was educated at Greshams School in Holt, Norfolk, and at the University of Cambridge. He lectured for two years at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and then returned to take a master’s degree at Cambridge. In 1928 he joined the faculty of Yale University and in 1941 became a U.S. citizen. He was awarded the Kyoto Prize in 1986, and posthumously the National Medal of Science in 1991.