Naomi E. Pierce received her BS in biology from Yale University and her PhD from Harvard, and has held appointments as a Research Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford University, and as an Assistant and Associate Professor at Princeton. Her research focuses on insect behavioral ecology, and has contributed widely to the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. She has been involved in reconstructing the evolutionary ‘Tree of life’ of insects, and together with her co-authors, published the first detailed molecular phylogenies of both the butterflies and the ants. She is a member of National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration, and has received awards including Fulbright and MacArthur Fellowships.  Her fieldwork currently takes her to East Africa to study the ecology of the ant acacia and its complex associations with ants, fungi and bacteria.