Anurag Agrawal, Cornell professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, entomology, and Fellow of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, has been named the Robert H. MacArthur Award winner from the Ecological Society of America (ESA). The prestigious, biannual prize recognizes a mid-career ecologist for sustained contribution to ecological discovery.
An expert in ecology and evolutionary biology, Agrawal focuses on the antagonistic interactions between plants and insect herbivores. His innovative research programs aim to better understand the complexity of community-wide interactions and the factors that bring about the coexistence of similar species. He has a current focus on conservation of monarch butterflies and their co-evolutionary interactions with milkweed plants.
Named in honor of Robert Helmer MacArthur who helped shape modern ecology as an experimental discipline, the award is given for meritorious contributions to ecology and the expectation of continued outstanding ecological research. In August 2017, Agrawal will speak at the annual EAS meeting held in Portland, OR, and his written address will also be published in the journal Ecology.
The ESA lauded Agrawal for his “consistent leadership in opening up new research themes, and continues to push the envelope using novel approaches to his science, teaching, and community building.” The society credited him for research that is “characterized by rigorous, manipulative field experiments to test the importance of species interactions, including interactions that were previously hidden but have since turned out to be novel and pervasive.”
Agrawal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and earned his PhD from the University of California at Davis in 1999. He joined Cornell as an associate professor in 2005 before becoming a full professor in 2010.
— Amruta Byatnal ’16
Photo credit: Frank DiMeo
