John Todd (biologist) - History

History

Todd was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1939. He earned his B.Sc. (1961) in agriculture and his M.Sc. (1963) in parasitology and tropical medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, after which he did doctoral work in fisheries and oceanography at the University of Michigan. His early professional interest, involving the behavioral ecology of fish, was the basis of his work as an assistant professor of ethology at San Diego State University (1968-1970), after which he joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, as an assistant scientist.

Todd's wife, Nancy Jack Todd, trained as a dancer and is a skilled writer and editor. She has edited and added introductions to many of John Todd's books, and co-written the most recent. Back in the Woods Hole days, John had begun to develop his ideas about how complicated biological food chains worked, and in their conversations Nancy wondered if ecological concepts could serve people's needs. She suggested science needed "a human face."

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