page_title: E. O. Wilson
section_title: Awards and honors
hierarchical_section_title: E. O. Wilson / Awards and honors
caption_attribution_description: English: Dr. E.O. Wilson addresses the audience at the dedication of the E.O. Wilson Biophilia center at Nokuse Plantation in Walton County Florida.
context_page_description: Edward Osborne Wilson, usually cited as E. O. Wilson, is an American biologist, naturalist, and writer. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he has been called the world's leading expert.
  Wilson has been called "the father of sociobiology" and "the father of biodiversity" for his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters. Among his greatest contributions to ecological theory is the theory of island biogeography, which he developed in collaboration with the mathematical ecologist Robert MacArthur. This theory served as the foundation of the field of conservation area design, as well as the unified neutral theory of biodiversity of Stephen Hubbell.
  Wilson is the Pellegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, a lecturer at Duke University, and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.
context_section_description: Wilson's scientific and conservation honors include:
  Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1959
  Member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected 1969
  U.S. National Medal of Science, 1976
  Leidy Award, 1979, from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
  Pulitzer Prize for On Human Nature, 1979
  Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, 1984
  ECI Prize, International Ecology Institute, terrestrial ecology, 1987
  honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at Uppsala University, Sweden, 1987
   Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award, 1988
  Crafoord Prize, 1990, a prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
  Pulitzer Prize for The Ants (with Bert Hölldobler), 1991
  International Prize for Biology, 1993
  Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science, 1994
  The National Audubon Society's Audubon Medal, 1995
  Time Magazine's 25 Most Influential People in America, 1995
  Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society, 1998.
  American Humanist Association's 1999 Humanist of the Year
  Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, 2000
  Nierenberg Prize, 2001
  Distinguished Eagle Scout Award 2004
  Dauphin Island Sea Lab christened its newest research vessel the R/V E.O. Wilson in 2005.
  Linnean Tercentenary Silver Medal, 2006
  Addison Emery Verrill Medal from the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2007
  TED Prize 2007 given yearly to honor a maximum of three individuals who have shown that they can, in some way, positively impact life on this planet.
  XIX Premi Internacional Catalunya 2007
  Member of the World Knowledge Dialogue Honorary Board, and Scientist in Residence for the 2008 symposium organized in Crans-Montana (Switzerland).
  Distinguished Lecturer, University of Iowa, 2008–2009
  E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center on Nokuse Plantation in Walton County, Florida 2009 video
  Explorers Club Medal, 2009
  2010 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology Category
  Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture, 2010
  2010 Heartland Prize for fiction for his first novel Anthill: A Novel
  EarthSky Science Communicator of the Year, 2010
  International Cosmos Prize, 2012
  Kew International Medal (2014)
  Commemoration in the species' epithet of Myrmoderus eowilsoni (2018)
  Commemoration in the species' epithet of Miniopterus wilsoni (2020)
caption: Wilson addresses the audience at the dedication of the Biophilia Center named for him at Nokuse Plantation in Walton County, Florida.
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