ReVista :: Education in Latin America :: Comings & Goings

Education in Latin America

Challenges for Latin Americans, U.S. Latinos
Spring 1999

Richard Levins

Honorary Degree

Richard Levins, John Rock Professor of Population Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, has been honored by the University of Havana with an honorary doctorate degree. Levins ,an internationally recognized U.S. ecologist and bio-mathematician, is considered one of the most prominent authors of mathematical patterns,in biological processes. Levins has worked for 33 years as an advisor to the Cuban government on scientific projects in ecology, agriculture, and public health. He has collaborated extensively with several scientific institutions in Cuba, particularly with research laboratories at the University of Havana. Most recently, he has started a collaborative relationship between the Human Ecology group at the Harvard School of Public Health and Cuban institutions.

The University of Havana cited the "originality of Levins' contributions in different areas of the environmental sciences," especially the mathematic modelling of biological processes.

For a more complete account of some of Richard Levins' work in Cuba, see the Fall 1998 issue of DRCLAS NEWS.