Ives, awarded the Steenbock Professorship in the Biological Sciences, is a member of the Department of Integrative Biology. He joined the faculty in 1990 as a theoretical ecologist, and his work bridges between mathematical theory and ecological experiments to understand complex ecosystems.
Ives received bachelor’s degrees in biology and mathematics from Rochester University and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1988. As a postdoc at the University of Washington, he started work on aphids, and he has continued this work in Wisconsin where aphids are pests of alfalfa crops. Aphids in alfalfa are generally kept in check by a diverse ecological community of predators, and Ives is studying when and how this natural pest control works well. In the last decade, he has focused on the rapid evolution of aphids to resist their predators, and how this evolution can be managed to improve natural pest control.
For the last 15 years Ives has also had a field project studying Lake Mývatn, Iceland, in collaboration with the Mývatn Research Station. Mývatn’s ecosystem is dominated by midges, and although Mývatn is only the size of Lake Mendota, it can produce the biomass of midges equal to 200 humpback whales. While the study focuses on midges, the midges have such a large impact that the research extends to everything in the Mývatn ecosystem.
Ives is a dedicated teacher and mentor, and he has taught the introductory ecology course in Integrated Biology since arriving to Madison, receiving the Chancellor’s distinguished teaching award in 2008. Ives has mentored 22 graduate students (2 M.A., 20 Ph.D.) and 22 postdocs who now populate academia in the United States and beyond.
“I am so grateful for my colleagues at UW–Madison — staff, students, and faculty — who have shaped my career and created such a great place to teach and study. I am also grateful for the Steenbock Professorship which provides some security for members of my lab in the turbulence now facing academics and basic science in the USA.”
Excerpted from “Steenbock professorships awarded in biological sciences, and behavioral and neural sciences” posted by Natasha Kassulke, UW Madison Research News,September 3, 2025. Read the full article here.