Stuart West

Stuart West
FRS
Stuart West receiving the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize
Born
Stuart Andrew West

1970 (age 55–56)
EducationUniversity of Cambridge (BA)
Imperial College London (PhD)
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
WorkplacesUniversity of Oxford
University of Edinburgh
University of British Columbia
ThesisReproductive strategies in parasitic hymenoptera (1995)
Websitewww.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/stuart-west Edit this at Wikidata

Stuart Andrew West FRS is an evolutionary biologist studying social evolution and a Professor of evolutionary biology in the Biology Department at the University of Oxford.

Education

West completed the Natural Sciences Tripos as an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge followed by a PhD at Imperial College London on reproductive strategies in parasitic hymenoptera.

Career and research

West's primary research interests are in the area of social evolution, sex allocation theory and microbial evolution. His research has attracted media attention, and has been published in high profile journals such as Nature, Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and Current Biology. West uses theoretical and empirical approaches to explain the evolution of cooperation, communication, and sex ratio.

With with John Krebs and Nicholas Davies, West is the co-author of the textbook An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology.

Awards and honours

West was a distinguished junior scholar in residence at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, University of British Columbia, Canada in 1999 and he has won the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Zoology (2006), the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London (2006). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2026. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and a former[when?] holder of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. He was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2026, alongside fellow Oxford researcher Matilda Brindle and University of Florida researcher Catherine F. Talbot, for their work on reconstructing the evolutionary history of human kissing.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Stuart West publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  2. ↑ "Professor Stuart West". biology.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2024-06-03.
  3. 1 2 Stuart West publications from Europe PubMed Central Edit this at Wikidata
  4. ↑ "Staurt West". westgroup.biology.ed.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2008-09-06.
  5. ↑ "The West Group". zoo.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2012-11-17.
  6. ↑ Stuart A. West ORCID 0000-0003-2152-3153
  7. ↑ West, Stuart Andrew (1995). Reproductive strategies in parasitic hymenoptera. london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). Imperial College London. OCLC 940354334. ProQuest 1780576736.
  8. 1 2 "Professor Stuart West FRS". royalsociety.org.
  9. ↑ "Media". Archived from the original on 2017-10-14.
  10. ↑ Stephen P Diggle; Ashleigh S Griffin; Genevieve S Campbell; West, Stuart (2007). "Cooperation and conflict in quorum-sensing bacterial populations". Nature. 450 (7168): 411–414. doi:10.1038/nature06279. PMID 18004383. Wikidata Q53557688. {{Cite Q}}: Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Stephen P Diggle , Ashleigh S Griffin, Genevieve S Campbell (help)
  11. ↑ West, Stuart; Ido Pen; Ashleigh S Griffin (2002). "Cooperation and competition between relatives". Science. 296 (5565): 72–75. doi:10.1126/science.1065507. PMID 11935015. Wikidata Q34589033. {{Cite Q}}: Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Ido Pen, Ashleigh S Griffin (help)
  12. ↑ West, Stuart; Roberta M Fisher; Gardner, Andy; Kiers, Toby (2015). "Major evolutionary transitions in individuality". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 112 (33): 10112–10119. Bibcode:2015PNAS..11210112W. doi:10.1073/pnas.1421402112. PMC 4547252. PMID 25964342. Wikidata Q28608544. {{Cite Q}}: Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Roberta M Fisher (help)
  13. ↑ Stuart A West; Ashleigh S Griffin; Andy Gardner (2007). "Evolutionary explanations for cooperation". Current Biology. 17 (16): R661-72. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.004. PMID 17714660. Wikidata Q34666546. {{Cite Q}}: Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Stuart A West, Ashleigh S Griffin, Andy Gardner (help)
  14. ↑ Stuart West publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  15. ↑ West, Stuart; Griffin AS; Gardner, Andy (2007). "Social semantics: altruism, cooperation, mutualism, strong reciprocity and group selection". Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 20 (2): 415–432. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01258.x. PMID 17305808. Wikidata Q34575748. {{Cite Q}}: Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Griffin AS (help)
  16. ↑ Davies, Nicholas B.; Krebs, John R.; West, Stuart A. (2014). An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology (4th ed.). Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 9781444398472. OCLC 898271534.
  17. ↑ "News & Events - Academic Innovators to Accept Awards at Royal Dinner". ed.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2022-12-07.
  18. ↑ Anon (2026-05-27). "Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Retrieved 2026-05-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  19. ↑ Anon (2014). "Stuart A. West". people.embo.org. Heidelberg: European Molecular Biology Organization.
  20. ↑ Ramakrishman, Adithi (5 September 2026). "Scientists studying cockroach milk and nose-blowing win Ig Nobel prizes for quirky science". Los Angeles Times. AP News. Retrieved 6 September 2026.