James Hemphill Brown

James Brown grew up in upstate New York, attended Cornell University, and received his Ph. D. from the University of Michigan. He has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Los Angeles, University of Utah, University of Arizona, University of New Mexico, and Santa Fe Institute. He is known for his research on desert ecocosystems, biogeography, ecological theory, and biological scaling. He is considered “the father of macroecology,”a large-scale, statistical, informatics-based discipline that offers powerful insights into contemporary problems of global change and human ecology. He is author of six books and more than 150 papers. He has trained numerous undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs, many of whom now hold influential positions in academia, NGOs, government agencies, and the private sector. He has received several honors and awards, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Odum Award for teaching, the MacArthur Award for research from the Ecological Society of America, the Merriam Award for research and the Grinnell Award for teaching from the American Society of Mammalogists, the Marsh Award for research from the British Ecological Society, the Wallace Award for research and Honorary Life Membership from the International Biogeography Society, and the Grinnell Medal from the University of California at Berkeley. Since 2012 he has been retired in Morro Bay, California, where he continues to do science and enjoys travel for culture and natural history, walks on the beach, and puttering in the kitchen and garden.