Robert E. Page Jr.

Page was born in Bakersfield, California, and spent his childhood there until he attended high school in Porterville, California. He served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1972. With support from the G.I. Bill, he received his undergraduate degree in entomology, with a minor in chemistry, from San Jose State University in 1976. He was awarded his Ph.D. in entomology from University of California-Davis in 1980. He began his career as an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology with Ohio State University in 1986, moving to the University of California-Davis in 1989, where he became chair for UC-Davis's Department of Entomology in 1999. He joined Arizona State University (ASU) in 2004 as founding director of ASU's School of Life Sciences,[3] one of the first interdisciplinary academic units developed under President Michael Crow's vision of the "New American University."[4] His background is in behavior and population genetics and the focus of his current research is on the evolution of complex social behavior. Using the honey bee as a model, Professor Page has dissected bee's complex foraging division of labor at all levels of biological organization - from gene networks to complex social interactions. An internationally recognized scholar, he has published more than 230 research papers and articles. In 2005, he was listed as an ISI's Highly Cited author in plant and animal science - representing the top ½ percent of publishing researchers.[5]

He served as provost of Arizona State University (2013–2015),[6] and vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the largest college in the university (2011–2013).[7] During this period he forged a platform to accelerate ASU’s transdisciplinary collaboration in the U.S. and Europe, advance educational reform, and jumpstart cutting-edge "virtual" learning formats. He also established ASU's Honey Bee Research Facility.

Honey bee pollinating flowers

Robert Page's background is in behavior and population genetics and the focus of his current research is on the evolution of complex social behavior. Using the honey bee as a model, he has dissected bee's complex foraging division of labor at all levels of biological organization - from gene networks to complex social interactions. His work, as well as that of his distinguished students, is outlined in his publication "The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution,"[8] released by Harvard University Press in 2013. As described on the fly leaf: "This book presents a comprehensive picture of the genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying the division of labor in honey bee colonies and explains how bees' complex social behavior has evolved over millions of years." His work has been cited in more than 18,000 publications and has an h-index value of 74.

• Elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1992)
• He received the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (the Humboldt Prize), the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists. (1995)
• Elected Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.[9] (1999)
• Robert E. Page is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (2006)
• Elected to the Leopoldina - the German National Academy of Sciences, the longest continuing academy in the world. (2009)
• Fellow of theWissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.[10] (2009)
• Fellow of Entomological Society of America. (2012)
• He was awarded the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship. (2013)
• Elected fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. (2016)
• James W. Creasman Award of Excellence, Arizona State University Alumni Association. (2018)
• Distinguished Emeritus Award,[11] University of California Davis. (2019)