G. David Tilman (born July 22, 1949 in Titman) is a prominent American ecologist. He is Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota, as well as an instructor in Conservation Biology; Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; and Microbial Ecology. He is director of the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve long-term ecological research station. Tilman is also a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a member of the National Academy of Science.

He received BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category goes in this seventh edition to David Tilman, professor at the University of Minnesota, for scientifically establishing the value of biodiversity, quantifying, for the first time, how it contributes to make ecosystems “more productive, more resilient to invasions, and more stable in the face of perturbations such as drought,” in the words of the jury’s citation.