Alfred J. Lotka

Alfred J. Lotka
Born(1880-03-02)2 March 1880
Lwów, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine)
Died5 December 1949(1949-12-05) (aged 69)
NationalityAmerican
Known forThe Lotka–Volterra equations
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics

Alfred James Lotka (March 2, 1880 – December 5, 1949) was a Polish-American mathematician, physical chemist, and statistician, famous for his work in population dynamics and energetics. A biophysicist, Lotka is best known for his proposal of the predator–prey model, developed simultaneously but independently of Vito Volterra. The Lotka–Volterra model is still the basis of many models used in the analysis of population dynamics in ecology.