Eugene P. Odum Lecture Series

Honoring the late Eugene P. Odum, founder of the Odum School of Ecology, the annual Eugene P. Odum Lecture Series features speakers that explore significant ecological questions in broad social and intellectual contexts.


Previous Odum Lectures

2024: Kai Chan, University of British Columbia. Restore the Wild: A Singular Uniting Agenda for Ecologists amidst an Ecological Crisis? (part of UGA’s spring 2024 Signature Lecture Series)

2023: Ivette Perfecto, University of Michigan. Food Systems at a Crossroads: Producing Food and Conserving our Planet (part of UGA’s spring 2023 Signature Lecture Series)

2022: JoAnn Burkholder, North Carolina State University. Going the Wrong Way on Cultural Eutrophication

2021: Erika Zavaleta, University of California Santa Cruz. The Interdependence of Biological and Cultural Diversity

2020: Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2019: Emily Bernhardt, Duke University. Do Rivers Have Rhythm? Taking the Pulse of Freshwater Ecosystems

2018: Hopi Hoekstra, Harvard University. From the Field to the Lab and Back Again: The Genetic Basis of Adaptation

2017: Iain Couzin, University of Konstanz. Collective Sensing and Decision-Making in Animal Groups: From Fish Schools to Primate Societies

2016: Jonathan Levine, ETH Zürich. Understanding Species’ Responses to Climate Change: The Need for Population and Community Ecology

2015: Nancy Grimm, University of Arizona. The Only Certainty Is Change: Reflections on a Stream, a City, and a Public University 

2014: Marlene Zuk, University of Minnesota. Rapid Evolution in Silence: Adaptive Signal Loss in the Pacific Field Cricket

2013: Mary E. Power, University of California, Berkeley. Food Webs in River Networks: Algal-mediated Linkages of Rivers, Uplands, and Oceans

2012: Thomas W. Schoener, University of California, Davis. Evolution + Ecology = EvoEco: The Interplay of Evolutionary and Ecological Dynamics

2011: Stephen Pacala, Princeton Environmental Institute. From Basic Botany to Global Climate Change

2010: William Schlesinger, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Better Living through Biogeochemistry

2009: Gretchen Daily, Stanford University. Ecosystem Services in Decision Making

2008: James Brown, University of New Mexico. Toward a Metabolic Theory of Ecology

2007: Stephen Carpenter, University of Wisconsin. Ecology for Transformation

2006: William Sutherland, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. Predicting the Ecological Impact of Environmental Change

2005: No lecture

2004: Pamela Matson, Stanford University. Agriculture and Environment in the Yaqui Valley, Mexico: Does Intensification Save Land for Nature?

2003: Bryan Grenfell, University of Cambridge. Infectious Disease in Space and Time

2002: Peter Raven, Missouri Botanical Gardens. Biodiversity, Extinction, and Sustainability

2001: Gordon Orians, University of Washington. From Micro to Macro in Ecology: Insights from Australia

2000: Andrew Dobson, Princeton University. Unifying Nature’s Whipping Post: The Role of Infectious Diseases in Natural Populations, Communities, and Ecosystems

1999: Theo Colborn, World Wildlife Fund, Washington DC. Endocrine Disrupters and the Web of Life

1998: William Mitsch, Ohio State University. Designing with the Energy Flow: The Ecological Approach to Engineering

1997: Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts. Gaia: The Wonderful Place with the Pox

1996: William Murdoch, University of California, Santa Barbara. Using Ecology to Solve Environmental Problems: Technical and Institutional Challenges

1995: Stephen Hubbell, Princeton University. Why Do We Need a National Institute for the Environment?

1994: Herman Daly, University of Maryland. Environmentalists’ Farewell to the World Bank

1993: Norman Myers, Headington, Oxford, UK. Tropical Forests: Their Future and Our Future

1992: Hank Shugart, University of Virginia. Using Ecosystem Models to Assess Potential Consequences of Global Climate Change

1991: William Clark, Harvard University. Sustainable Development of the Biosphere: Managing the Intersections between the World Economy and the Global Environment

1990: Thomas Lovejoy, Smithsonian Institution. The Environment: Decade of Decision

1989: Bert Bolin, International Institute of Meteorology and University of Stockholm. Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change: What Do We Know and What Do We Do?

1988: David Sloan Wilson, Michigan State University. Reviving the Superorganism

1987: John Harper, University of North Wales. A Reductionist in an Ecosystem

1986: Rita Colwell, University of Maryland. Environmental Aspects of Research in Biotechnology

1985: David Coleman, University of Georgia. From Genetics to Gaia: Toward an Appropriate Biotechnology