Anurag Agrawal

Anurag Agrawal, the James A. Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies, in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, is an evolutionary ecologist. He works on diverse species interactions, particularly chemically mediated coevolution between plants and their herbivorous insect pests. He uses natural history, field experiments, genetics, and comparative biology to test fundamental theories as well improve environmental and agricultural sustainability.

His area of focus include the generally antagonistic interactions between plants and insect herbivores as he ultimately seeks to understand the complexity of community-wide interactions. What ecological factors allow the coexistence of similar species? What evolutionary factors led to the diversification of species? In total, plants and insect herbivores comprise about one half of earth's macroscopic biodiversity and herbivory accounts for major losses in agriculture. 

Agrawal earned a B.A. in Biology and M.A. in Conservation Biology from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Population Biology from the University of California at Davis. Agrawal has received the Young Investigator and E.O. Wilson Awards from the American Society of Naturalists, Georg Mercer and R.H. Macarthur Awards from the Ecological Society of America, Founder’s Memorial Award from the Entomological Society of America, Silverstein-Simeone Award from the International Society of Chemical Ecology, and the David Starr Jordan Prize