George Frederick Oster

NAS Nas (born 1973) is the stage name of American rapper Nasir Jones. Nas, NaS, or NAS may also refer to: Aviation * Nasair, a low-cost airline carrier and subsidiary based in Eritrea * National Air Services, an airline in Saudi Arabia ** Nas Air (S ...

(April 20, 1940 – April 15, 2018) was an American mathematical

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

, and Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. He made seminal contributions to several varied fields including chaos theory, population dynamics, membrane dynamics and molecular motors. He was a 1985 MacArthur Fellow.

Early career

He graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, with a Ph.D., in Nuclear Engineering in 1967. He was appointed as an assistant professor in at UC Berkeley in 1970. In the early 1970s Oster collaborated with Aharon Katzir-Katchalsky on statistical mechanics. Oster's work with

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology. Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequ ...

on populations dynamics of social animals, particularly ants, is considered pioneering work in evolution in social insects. Oster was one of the first theoretical biologists to understand that a complex interplay between mechanical and chemical forces was at the root of most biological phenomena.

Later career

He was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2004. Oster was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

, and a member of the science board of the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...

Awards

*1975

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

*1984

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

*1992

Weldon Memorial Prize The Weldon Memorial Prize, also known as the Weldon Memorial Prize and Medal, is given yearly by the University of Oxford. The prize is to be awarded without regard to nationality or membership of any University to the person who, in the judgem ...

*Winfree Prize for Mathematical Biology *Sackler International Prize in Biophysics

References

External links

"George Oster", ''Scientific Commons''
1940 births 2018 deaths Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty MacArthur Fellows American theoretical biologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Santa Fe Institute people Biologists from New York (state) {{US-biologist-stub