Joel E. Cohen

Population Biologist Class of December 1981

About Joel's Work

Joel Cohen studies population biology using mathematical methods.

Cohen developed models of the variation of birth and death rates over time in order to improve estimates of the uncertainty of population forecasts in demography.  He discovered patterns in the structure of food webs – networks describing which species eat which other species – and proposed novel explanations for these patterns.  Cohen is interested in how mathematics can help solve social problems, including the interaction of human population growth with economics, the environment, and culture.  His recent interests include the spatial distribution of the Earth’s human population in relation to biological and geophysical factors and the ecology of insect-borne Chagas disease in Latin America.  His books include A Model of Simple Competition (1966), Food Webs and Niche Space (1978), Random Matrices and their Applications (co-editor, 1986), Community Food Webs: Data and Theory (1990), and How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995). 

Biography

Cohen is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Populations and head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University.

Cohen received an A.B. (1965), an M.A. (1967), a Ph.D. (1970), an M.P.H. (1970) and a D.P.H. (1973) from Harvard University.

Last update January 1, 2005

Published on December 1, 1981

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