Ward Belfield Watt
Ward Belfield Watt was a scientist and scholar with a passionate interest in natural history and evolution that started in his childhood, first collecting seashells, then butterflies around his local neighborhood. He was also an avid photographer and jazz clarinetist, later adding the banjo to his repertoire, and an enthusiast of fine wines. Known for his precise mind, sharp wit, and kind demeanor, he was a devoted mentor for students and junior colleagues, and greatly enjoyed lively discussions over dinner or out in the field.
Ward was born in Washington, D.C., 21 October 1940, to parents Lois May Belfield and Ralph Wardlaw Watt. He grew up in Hyattsville, MD, and attended Sidwell Friends School, graduating in 1958 with a rapidly accelerating interest in science in addition to photography and music. His fascination with butterflies prompted him to join the Lepidopterists’ Society in 1955 as a fifteen-year-old high school student, and make connections with Dr. Charles Remington, who would become his undergraduate and doctoral advisor at Yale University, and then-graduate student Paul Ehrlich, who eventually would be Ward’s colleague at Stanford. Ward served in the Army ROTC at Yale, graduating magna cum laude with a BA with a senior thesis in Zoology in 1962.
Summer 1962 was formative in a number of ways; Ward spent his first field season at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Colorado, where he met Alice Godfrey, and they married in June 1963. Daughters Jean Carolyn and Laura Alice were born in 1964 and 1966, respectively. Ward and Alice were divorced in 1977, and that autumn he met Carol Boggs when he gave a seminar at the University of Texas. They were married in 1979, with a marriage that lasted 45 years.
After that first summer at RMBL, Ward continued his studies in Biology at Yale, earning a MS in 1964 and PhD in 1967. After two years of military service as Captain, Medical Service Corps, US Army, from 1967-69, Ward joined the faculty at Stanford University in the Biology Department, and the family relocated to Palo Alto, California. His parents joined them in California in 1975 after they retired from their careers, building an addition to the family’s house on Stanford’s campus.
In 2013 Ward and Carol left Stanford to join the faculty at the University of South Carolina. In 2015 Ward was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He retired from the university in 2022, but continued to advise students and maintain a lab until his death.
When asked what he studied, Ward’s response was invariably “how evolution works.” He used sulfur butterflies as a study system, exploring their ecology and evolution from the level of molecules to populations and communities. He focused on enzymes of central metabolic pathways, examining the role of selection in shaping their function. The work demonstrated that the operation of evolution can be seen over short time scales, as well as the longer geological scales associated with speciation. Beyond field work in the Gunnison Basin, Ward also led expeditions with family, students, and colleagues to northwestern Canada and Alaska in 1965, 1976, 1998, and 2007 to collect butterflies and run experiments. He published 75 articles in major scientific journals and co-edited a book on butterfly ecology and evolution.
Across the course of his long career, Ward graduated over 60 honors research undergraduates, nearly half of whom went on to earn the PhD. He was among the first awardees of the Allan Cox Medal for Excellence in Fostering Undergraduate Research at Stanford. He also graduated 21 PhD students and advised 7 postdoctoral fellows. He was a dedicated and loyal mentor for each of these. His classroom teaching, for which he also won awards at Stanford, included introductory biology, genetics, biochemical evolution and insect biology.
Ward’s strong connection to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory continued across his entire lifetime. The family built their own cabin just south of the Lab in 1971, and he conducted research at RMBL almost every summer from 1962 until 2023, missing only 1964 for the birth of his first daughter, 1967-8 for military service, and 2020 for the Covid-19 pandemic. Over more than 60 years, Ward served in a variety of leadership and otherwise important roles, all in service to the health and well-being of the institution. He helped raise funding to construct the first modern laboratory building at RMBL, and oversaw the hiring of its first professional development officer. Among other service, Ward was a member of the Board of Trustees for over 20 years, Vice President of the Board from 1982-1986, and President from 1987-1988, all during a period of significant transition for RMBL. He also worked to enhance RMBL’s scientific life, organizing a graduate workshop on evolutionary genetics that included a diverse suite of outside speakers and participants from RMBL, and serving as a lead local organizer of the 1984 Evolution Meetings and the 1998 Third International Symposium on the Biology of Butterflies, held in Mt. Crested Butte.
Ward’s devotion to research institutions extended to the California Academy of Sciences while he was at Stanford. He served as a Science Trustee for the CalAcademy and as its President during the 2000s, when the organization embarked on an ambitious and successful fund-raising campaign that resulted in the complete re-building and re-envisioning of the institution after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged much of the museum’s facilities in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
Among the honors that Ward received were election as a Fellow of Sigma Xi, the American Society of Naturalists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences. His most recent award was the RMBL Lifetime Distinguished Service Award in 2024.
Ward passed away peacefully at home in South Carolina on 27 October, 2024, from Parkinson’s and cervical stenosis. He is survived by his wife Carol Boggs, daughter Jean Godfrey-June with her partner Jonathan Goldberger, daughter Laura Alice Watt, plus his grandchildren India Belfield June and Wiley Law June, along with four sisters- and brothers-in-law, two nieces, and two nephews. He will be buried at the Crested Butte Cemetery on Sunday, 3 November, 2024. In lieu of flowers, his family asks that donations be made to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory’s general endowment fund, or to your favorite charity.
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Starts at 1:00 pm (Mountain time)
Crested Butte Cemetery
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