Simon Levin is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University where he has been a professor since 1992, after 27 years on the faculty of Cornell University. His research interests are in understanding how macroscopic patterns and processes are maintained at the level of ecosystems and the biosphere, and in the interface between basic and applied ecology and socioeconomic systems. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics and has been the President of the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Mathematical Biology.

Levin is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He has also been honored with the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the MacArthur Award and Eminent Ecologist Awards of the Ecological Society of America, the Margalef Prize for Ecology, the Kyoto Prize for Basic Science, and the U.S. National Medal of Science by President Obama.