Howard H. Pattee

Howard Hunt Pattee (October 5, 1926 – July 29, 2026) was an American biologist and academic who was a Professor at Binghamton University and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He graduated at Stanford University in 1948 and completed a Ph.D. there in 1953.

Academics Pattee's main research interests were theoretical biology with a focus on origin of life, artificial life, biosemiotics, semiotic control of dynamic systems, and the physics of codes and symbols. His many contributions to the "symbol-matter" problem within the cell have had much influence on theoretical biology, biosemiotics, complex systems and artificial life. Books by other authors that have built upon his work include The Consciousness Instinct by Michael Gazzaniga and Behavior and Culture in One Dimension: Sequences, Affordances, and the Evolution of Complexity by his former Ph.D. student Dennis P. Waters.

Death Pattee died on July 29, 2026, at the age of 99.

Eponymous species In 2019, a lichen species new to science, Catillaria patteeana, was named for Dr. Pattee.