For the 14th year, Popular Science has crowned ten bright young minds who have made strides in the fields of science and engineering as “brilliant”, including Pitt biologist, Jonathan Pruitt.
On September 23, 2015, Jonathan Pruitt’s victory had become public following the press release featuring his research on spiders exhibiting social selection.
Pruitt has worked diligently on this study for six years and spends 3 months a year in a hut in Africa observing spiders on site.
Pruitt’s research shows that spider societies were able to select for the personalities mixtures that would be better suited for their environment.
“Colonies go extinct all the time, because social spiders are ecological losers. So, I wondered if I could manipulate…show more content… and yes he is brilliant. I did postdocs with two of the most brilliant people in my field (Steve Hubbell and Dave Tilman). Pruitt is in their league.
Well, Pruitt, said that the brilliance in his research could is mostly tied to his hard work and diligence.
“No, it might appear that way, but I actually have to work very hard to overwhelm the handicap that I’m not that intelligent. Enough hard work can make one appear brilliant,” he said.
Interestingly, Pruitt’s stood out as extraordinary even during his youth. He said that growing up in Haines City, Florida, he lived in a pretty economically deprived area and the schooling provided by high school was lackluster.
“I went to schools that recieved supplementary funding because they had really low standardized test scores and 80-90% were at free or reduced lunches,” he said.
In lieu of high school, he took classes at a nearby university. Nonetheless, his involvement in his high school extracirriculars and personal hobbies were extensive.
“I swam, I was in theater, I played chess, I did tennis, the marching band,” he said.
Undoubetly, Pruitt’s diverse skill, hard work, and intellect disseminates into his