Paul Bigelow Sears collection

Paul Bigelow Sears, educator, botanist, ecologist and conservationist was born on December 17, 1891, in Bucyrus, Ohio, to Rufus Victor and Sallie Harris Sears. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University, receiving a B.S. degree in 1913 and a B.A. in 1914. From there he went to the University of Nebraska and received an M.A. in 1915, after which he studied at the University of Chicago, earning his Ph.D. in botany in 1922. Sears married Marjorie Lea McCutcheon on June 22, 1917, and served in the United States Army from 1917-1918. The Sears’ had three children, Paul McCutcheon, Catherine Louise (Mrs. Arthur Frazer), and Sallie Harris Sears.

Sears began his teaching career as an instructor in botany at Ohio State University (1915-1919). He then served as assistant and associate professor of botany at the University of Nebraska (1919-1927). From 1928 to 1938 Sears taught at the University of Oklahoma and was head of the Botany Department. He also served as a botanist for the State Biological Survey of Oklahoma. His books from these years presented issues in the study of ecology to the public. These included Deserts On The March (1935), for which Sears received a Book of the Month award, This Is Our World (1937), and Who Are These Americans (1939). Sears also produced ecology study guides and textbooks for science teachers and their students.

From 1938 until 1950, Sears served as professor of botany at Oberlin College. In Ohio, Sears was active in local conservation groups and was instrumental in the founding of Friends of the Land in Ohio. In 1946 he was named to the Ohio Conservation Commission and worked to create an Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Sears was also active in the Ecological Society of America and was elected president of the society in 1948.

In 1950 Sears was named professor of conservation and chairman of the Conservation Program at Yale University. The Conservation Program at Yale was the country's first graduate program in the conservation of natural resources. From 1953 - 1955 Sears also served as chairman of the Plant Science Department at Yale. In 1952 Sears received the Conservation medal from the Garden Club of America and in 1956 he was named Eminent Botanist by the Botanical Society of America. Sears served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1956), Sigma Xi national lecturer (1956), chairman of the board the National Audubon Society (1956-1959), and president of the American Society of Naturalists (1959). From 1958 - 1964, Sears was a member of the National Science Board and from 1959 - 1972 he served on the Plowshare Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission.

In 1960 Sears retired from Yale and was named professor emeritus. Subsequently he served as visiting professor in the Tom Wallace Chair of Conservation at the University of Louisville and was a visiting faculty member at the University of Hawaii, Carleton College, Wake Forest College, and the University of Southern Illinois. From 1963 - 1965 Sears chaired the commission on science education of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1965 Sears was named Eminent Ecologist by the Ecological Society of America. During the decade of the 1960s Sears published Where There Is Life (1962), The Living Landscape (1966), and Lands Beyond the Forest (1969), as well as writing articles of technical and general interest on applied ecology.

Paul B. Sears, perhaps more than any other person, epitomized American plant ecology. In a professional career spanning almost 7 decades, he made major contributions to vegetation mapping, paleoecology and Pleistocene history, vegetation studies, conservation, human ecology and our use of land; and particularly, the varied roles of scientists in modern society. He was one of the most respected and honored ecologists in North America. He died in the medical center at Plaza de Retiro in Taos , New Mexico on April 30, 1990.