Michael Patrick Hassell CBE FRS (born 2 August 1942) is a British biologist, noted for his work in population ecology, especially in insects. He is a professor at Imperial College London. Hassell was born in Tel Aviv, the son of Albert and Ruth Hassell and was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon. He studied zoology at the University of Cambridge and received his Ph.D degree from the University of Oxford in 1967. He later worked as a research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and at Oxford. Hassell joined Imperial College London in 1970 as a lecturer. He became a reader in 1975 and was named Professor of Insect Ecology in 1979. Hassell became dean of the Imperial College campus at Silwood Park in 1988 and Head of the Department of Biology and Biochemistry in 1993. He was app