Anne Sverdrup-ThygesonNobel Conference 59

Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

Professor of Conservation Biology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and Scientific Advisor, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA)

Why We Should Love Insects

Can you be persuaded to love insects? Not just the lovely ones like butterflies, or the “helpful” ones like honeybees, but all of the insects on this planet? Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson thinks you can, and she’s giving her best try. “If one has a friendly disposition, then the wish to care about them comes from the inside.” 

Conservation biologist Sverdrup-Thygeson does research on insect ecology and on forestry effects on biodiversity, carbon stocks and ecological processes in mature boreal forests, and she teaches courses on conservation biology to both undergraduate and graduate students. But the work for which she is becoming known around the world is communicating about insects to the general public in a way that will make us stop wanting to kill them. 

Sverdrup-Thygeson is the author of two books for a mainstream audience, Extraordinary Insects (which was published in the United States with the name Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects), and Tapestries of Life. She has given a popular TED talk; she writes a blog; and she appears regularly on the Norwegian radio science program Ekko Abel's Tower. She is, in short, committed to doing everything in her power to convey to the public the fact that insects are “just the most amazing organisms around. They are incredibly species rich, and they’re both fun and fascinating in many ways. They’re also incredibly important. We completely depend on them for our lives and welfare.”

One interviewer calls Sverdrup-Thygeson “Norway’s foremost conveyor of enthusiasm for tiny critters.” She suggests that one reason she is effective as a science communicator is that, prior to studying science, she also studied history and journalism. As she notes, “people have a different way of talking and thinking” in humanities and social science disciplines; having studied them gives her the capacity to appreciate and use these other ways of thinking.

Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson is Professor of Conservation Biology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and Scientific Advisor, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA). She has a PhD in conservation biology from the University of Oslo. Her bestselling book Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects (known elsewhere as Extraordinary Insects) has been translated into more than two dozen languages.