Photo – Pringle Lab at Princeton
Robert M. Pringle, director of the Pringle Lab at Princeton in Gorongosa National Park has received 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in biology.
Guggenheim Fellowships average between $40,000 – $55,000 and are intended for mid-career individuals who demonstrate exceptional capacity for productive scholarship and exhibit great promise for their future endeavors.
Pringle, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the Princeton University is one of seven Princeton faculty and among 188 scholars to receive fellowships from a pool of almost 3,000 applicants working across 52 disciplines. His wife, Professor Corina E. Tarnita, also received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Since its inception, the Pringle Lab at Prince ton has worked in Gorongosa National Park for what Pringle says are “unique opportunities to solve fundamental mysteries about the rules of life, while simultaneously assisting in an unprecedented conservation effort. “
“Our research in Gorongosa addresses questions about the effects of conflict on biodiversity, the efficacy of large-scale ecosystem restoration, animal diet and nutrition, predator-prey interactions, ‘trophic cascades’, and the behavioral ecology of antelopes and other large mammals,” Pringle said. “Increasingly, we are also working on forecasting the effects of climate change on the Gorongosa Ecosystem, and on how Gorongosa can be part of the solution to this global challenge.”
Pringle joined Princeton in 2012 and specializes in ecology, biodiversity and conservation. He teaches undergraduate courses including “Ecology: Species Interactions, Biodiversity and Society” and “Ecology and Conservation of African Landscapes”. His graduate seminars include “Fundamental Concepts in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior II” and “Colloquium on the Biology of Populations.”
“As an ecologist, I seek to understand the rules that govern natural ecosystems,” Pringle said. “I pursue that goal out of sheer curiosity and love for wild places, but also because this knowledge is vital for the health of our planet—we need it to salvage ecosystems that have damaged by human activity.”
Most of Pringle’s research focuses on African savannas and the interactions among its iconic species. After attending the University of Pennsylvania, Pringle earned his Master’s degree at the University of Oxford, where he studied African history and environmental management. He completed his Ph.D. in biology at Stanford University in 2009 and spent three years as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. In 2012, he joined the faculty at Princeton’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.
“The new class of fellows has followed their calling to enhance all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding,” Guggenheim Foundation President Edward Hirsch said in the statement. “We’re lucky to look to them to bring us into the future.”
Fellowships are awarded through an annual competition open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada. Candidates must apply to the Guggenheim Foundation in order to be considered. The Foundation receives approximately 3,000 applications each year. No one who applies is guaranteed success in the competition and there is no prescreening; all applications are reviewed. Approximately 175 fellowships are awarded.