John Maynard Smith Prize

Every year the European Society for Evolutionary Biology distinguishes an outstanding young evolutionary biologist with the John Maynard Smith Prize.

The prize is named after John Maynard Smith (1920 - 2004), eminent evolutionary biologist, and author of many books on evolution, both for scientists and the general public. He was professor at the University of Sussex, UK, Fellow of the Royal Society, winner of the Darwin Medal, laureate of the Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and President of ESEB. See the interview by Robert Wright for an account of his life long fascination with evolution, and here for a biography.

Nomination:

The next call for nominations will be announced approximately in Fall 2013 on the ESEB web site.

The prize winner is expected to attend the next ESEB congress, where he or she will deliver the John Maynard Smith Lecture. The Society will cover registration, accommodation, and travel expenses (economy fare). The Prize also includes the possibility of a Junior Fellowship of generally 3 months at the Institute of Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, Germany.

Further Junior Fellowships may be awarded to other JMS Prize nominees. For more information on the Wissenschaftskolleg, see Institute of Advanced Study or contact Paul Schmid-Hempel, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Current and previous winners of the JMS Prize are listed below.

Winner 2013

Picture Gabriel PerronGabriel Perron is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa, ON, Canada. His work focuses on identifying the processes and mechanisms leading to microbial adaptation. In the past, Gabriel used a combination of real-time evolution experiments and molecular techniques to study the direct effect of ecological factors such as dispersal and environmental fluctuations on the evolution of medically important traits. He is now developing genomic tools to investigate the role of genetic architecture and ecology in shaping the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance in natural populations of bacteria.

Gabriel obtained his first degree and a Master’s degree at McGill University where he worked under the supervision of Graham Bell. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford in Angus Buckling’s group (now at the University of Exeter in Cornwall), where he developed experimental source-sink systems. Gabriel joined Michael Desai’s lab at Harvard University in September 2010 as a postdoctoral fellow where he studied the evolutionary origins of antimicrobial resistance. In October 2012, Gabriel joined Rees Kassen’s group at the University of Ottawa, where he is expanding his research program to the genetics of adaptation in natural populations.

Gabriel's prize will be celebrated at the XIV ESEB Congress in Lisbon, Portugal, where he will give the John Maynard Smith Prize Lecture on "The Genetics and Evolutionary Origins of Adaptation in Microbial Populations".(Abstract)


Runner-up 2013 (awarded a junior fellowship)

Picture Rich FitzJohnRich FitzJohn is an evolutionary biologist who uses mathematical and computational approaches to explore the distribution of taxonomic and trait diversity. During his doctoral research, Rich explored how species selection (where speciation or extinction rates vary with species' traits) can drive variation in species and trait diversity. He developed several new comparative phylogenetics methods for detecting these trait/diversity associations that have been widely adopted.

Rich recently completed a PhD in evolutionary biology with Prof. Sarah P. Otto at the University of British Columbia, Canada. In 2012 he joined Mark Westoby's lab at Macquarie University, Australia, where he is working on models of species coexistence and competition.

Rich has been awarded for a Junior Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, Germany.


Previous winners

 

 

Last updated April 9, 2013. For suggestions or comments please send an e-mail.