CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Entomologist Gene Robinson, the newly appointed executive director and CEO of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Discovery Partners Institute, will be inducted into the American Philosophical Society at a ceremony in April.
Robinson holds a University Swanlund Chair in Entomology and Center for Advanced Study professorships in entomology and neuroscience at the U. of I. He earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1986 and has been an Illinois faculty member since 1989. From 2012 to this year, Robinson served as the director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, an interdisciplinary team-science institute that uses genomics to address grand challenges in science and society.
Robinson’s research centers on the honey bee, which he developed into a model organism to explore the genomic underpinnings of cognition, problem-solving, communication, altruism and other facets of individual and communal behavior. This work has led to fundamental advances in understanding the endocrine, neural and genetic regulation of behavior.
With numerous awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2005 and to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018, Robinson is recognized as a pioneer in the use of genomics to study the brain and social behavior. He was elected to the APS in 2021 but was unable to attend previous induction ceremonies due to his obligations to the National Academy of Sciences governing council.
The APS is the oldest learned society in the United States, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge,” according to its website. It supports “research and discovery through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes, exhibitions and public education.” The APS currently has about 1,000 members in the U.S. and abroad.
