He said on many occasions that the Sonoran Desert is the only place he would ever consider living. He fell in love with the Sonoran Desert and decided to move to Arizona. A field trip to the Chiricahua mountains in southern Arizona changed his life. Wilson.Īfter graduation, he was quicky hired by the University of Washington.

He graduated from Amherst University in 1965 and received his PhD from Harvard University in Evolutionary Biology in 1969, studying under Ernst Mayr and E.O. He dedicated his academic career to the study of living things. He was given a pair of binoculars at age seven and this gift sparked his life-long passion for birdwatching and nature. He grew up in rural Landenburg, PA surrounded by farms, woods and marshes. John Alcock was born in Charlottesville, VA in 1942 and died in Mesa, Arizona on January 15, 2023.