Crossing scales: Howard T. Odum

Extract

One of the founders of modern ecology, environmental science, ecological engineering and economics, H.T. Odum, passed away on 11 September 2002 in Gainesville, Florida, from cancer at the age of 78. He died less than a month after the death of his older brother and long-time collaborator, Eugene P. Odum. The two brothers published the classic ecological textbook of the early 1950s (Odum 1953; H.T. Odum's role was not credited until an acknowledgement page in the 3rd edition, published in 1971), one of the first modern holistic views of ecology, ecosystems and human impacts. Among numerous other prizes and awards, they jointly won the Crafoord Prize in 1987, equivalent to a Nobel Prize in ecology, and the Prize of the Institut de la Vie in Paris in 1976. Howard Odum produced 15 books, nearly 300 articles and was chairman for nearly 100 doctoral dissertations of which 75 were during his tenure at the University of Florida from 1970. His students are leaders in many fields of environmental science. His ashes were scattered in the Howard T. Odum Memorial Cypress Swamp, a cypress dome near the University of Florida campus that he donated to the University for research purposes.