Naomi E. Pierce (born 1954) is the Hessel Professor of Biology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and a world authority on butterflies. Pierce is the university's Curator of Lepidoptera, a position once held by

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

. Pierce was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow in Zoology from

Harvard university Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian ...

in 1983, and a MacArthur Fellow in 1988 with Ecology and Evolutionary/Environmental Biology as area of focus. Pierce studies the relationship between butterfly larvae and ants, as well as the genetic trends within the species, in order to understand the process of evolution. Pierce and collaborators Corrie Moreau and Charles D. Bell were the first to establish the origin of ants at 140 to 168 million years ago using molecular sequence data, 40 million years older than previous estimates.

Career

Pierce earned her BSc in Biology at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

(1972–76) and her Ph.D. in Biology at Harvard (1977–83). From 1984–86 she was Research Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford and a NATO Research Fellow at Oxford's Department of Zoology. In 1986 she moved to Princeton as Assistant (1986–89) and Associate (1989–90) Professor of Biology, and in 1991 was appointed Hessel Professor and Curator of Lepidoptera.

Awards, honors, and distinctions

In 2018, the

entomopathogenic fungus An entomopathogenic fungus is a fungus that can kill or seriously disable insects. Typical life cycle These fungi usually attach to the external body surface of insects in the form of microscopic spores (usually asexual, mitosporic spores also ...

'' Ophiocordyceps naomipierceae'' was named in her honor. In 2019, she was awarded the

International Prize for Biology The is an annual award for "outstanding contribution to the advancement of research in fundamental biology." The Prize, although it is not always awarded to a biologist, is one of the most prestigious honours a natural scientist can receive. Ther ...

for her research in the evolution of insect symbioses

References

External links

Pierce Laboratory
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pierce, Naomi 1954 births Living people Evolutionary biologists Women evolutionary biologists Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty MacArthur Fellows Women zoologists Yale University alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American lepidopterists Women entomologists