Aaron M. Ellison

Aaron M. Ellison is an American ecologist, photographer, sculptor, and writer. He retired in July 2021 after 20 years as the senior research fellow in ecology at Harvard University and as a Senior Ecologist at the Harvard Forest. He also served as deputy director of the Harvard Forest from 2018 to 2021. Until 2018, he also was an adjunct research professor at the University of Massachusetts in the Departments of Biology and Environmental Conservation. Ellison has both authored and co-authored numerous scientific papers, books, book reviews and software reviews. For more than 30 years, Ellison has studied food-web dynamics and community ecology of wetlands and forests; the evolutionary ecology of carnivorous plants; the responses of plants and ants to global climate change; application of Bayesian statistical inference to ecological research and environmental decision-making; and the critical reaction of Ecology to Modernism. In 2012 he was elected a fellow of the Ecological Society of America. He was the editor-in-chief of Ecological Monographs from 2008 to 2015, was a senior editor of Methods in Ecology and Evolution from 2018-2021, and since 2021 has been the executive editor of Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Career Ellison was born in 1960 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He attended Yale University, where he studied East Asian studies/Asian philosophy and obtained his B.A. in 1982. He later went on to obtain his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University in 1986. Ellison's postdoctoral positions were with the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica, Department of Biology, Tulane University, 1988–1989, and Cornell University, Section of Ecology and Systematics and Ecosystems Research Center, 1986–1988. he moved to Harvard Forest as a senior ecologist in 2002. 2004 – Eminent Ecologist, Kellogg Biological Station 2012 – Elected Fellow, Ecological Society of America 2014 – Human Diversity Award (for the Harvard Forest Summer Undergraduate Research Program), Organization of Biological Field Stations 2022 - Natural Sciences Fellow, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study 2022 - Humboldt Prize (Humboldt Research Award)

Books A primer of ecological statistics (1st and 2nd editions). 2004/2012. Gotelli, N. J. & A. M. Ellison. Oxford University Press, New York, New York, USA. A field guide to the ants of New England. 2012. Ellison, A. M., N. J. Gotelli, G. Alpert, and E. J. Farnsworth. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Stepping in the same river twice: replication in biological research. 2017. Shavit, A. & A. M. Ellison (editors). Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Vanishing point: poetry and photography from the Pacific northwest. 2017. Ellison, A. M. BookBaby. Carnivorous plants: physiology, ecology, and evolution. 2018. Ellison, A. M. & L. Adamec (editors). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Causes and consequences of species diversity in forest ecosystems. 2019. Ellison, A. M. & F. S. Gilliam (editors). MDPI Books, Basel, Switzerland. Scaling in ecology in a model system. 2021. Ellison, A. M. & N. J. Gotelli. Monographs in Population Biology, number 64. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.