Naomi Pierce

Naomi E. Pierce (born 1954) is an American entomologist and evolutionary biologist who studies plant-herbivore coevolution and is a world authority on butterflies. She is the Hessel Professor of Biology and Curator of Lepidoptera in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.

Education
Pierce earned her B.S. in Biology at Yale (1972–76) and her Ph.D. in Biology at Harvard (1977–83). Pierce was a Fulbright Scholar in Zoology from Harvard University to Griffith University in 1983 and a MacArthur Fellow in 1988 with Ecology and Evolutionary/Environmental Biology as area of focus.

Career
From 1984–86, Pierce was Research Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford and a NATO Research Fellow at Oxford's Department of Zoology. In 1986 she moved to Princeton University as Assistant (1986–89) and Associate (1989–90) Professor of Biology. In 1991 Pierce was appointed Hessel Professor and Curator of Lepidoptera at Harvard University.

The Pierce Lab studies topics including the evolution of symbioses, phylogeny, biogeography, systematics, plant-insect-microbe interactions, and biodiversity and life history evolution of insects. Pierce is known for her research on the relationship between lycaenid butterfly larvae and ants, as well as the genetic trends within the species, in order to understand the process of evolution. Pierce and collaborators Corrie Moreau and Charles D. Bell were the first to establish the origin of ants at 140 to 168 million years ago using molecular sequence data, 40 million years older than previous estimates.

In 2018, the entomopathogenic fungus Ophiocordyceps naomipierceae was named in Pierce's honor.

Selected Awards

 * Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 2023
 * International Prize for Biology, 2019
 * American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow, 2018
 * Entomological Society of America Fellow, 2011
 * American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, 2007
 * Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, Harvard University
 * MacArthur Fellow, 1988
 * Fulbright Scholar, 1983