The Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize is awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding young evolutionary biologist.   The prize was established in memory of Professor Dobzhansky by his friends and colleagues, and reflects his lifelong commitment to fostering the research careers of young scientists.

This year’s winner of the Dobzhansky Prize is Dr. Molly Schumer. Dr. Schumer completed her Bachelor’s degree at Reed College and her PhD at Princeton University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia for one year, and is currently a Junior Fellow at Harvard University. Dr. Schumer’s research addresses questions related to the patterns and processes of hybridization. Evolutionary biologists have often envisioned speciation as an ordered process, where reproductive barriers arise and prevent gene flow between species; with the advent of high-throughput sequencing, it is now possible to more thoroughly examine the evolutionary history of species. Among many important findings, Dr. Schumer’s results in swordtail fish show that hybridization events can be more common than previously thought, and that large genomic fractions may be derived from hybridization, suggesting that hybridization makes major contributions to the genomic landscapes of modern species. Dr. Schumer’s work has appeared in the journals Evolution, eLIFE, PLoS Genetics, Molecular Ecology, and Science.

Past Dobzhansky Prize winners: