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. Mary Caswell Stoddard. Dr. Stoddard graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelors’ of Science in Biology from Yale in 2008, and subsequently completed her PhD in Zoology as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Cambridge in 2015. From 2012-2015, she was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University. She will start as an Assistant Professor at Princeton in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in July 2016.  Dr. Stoddard’s research explores how animals perceive information in the environment and process this information as well as how these factors influence performance. More specifically, Dr. Stoddard works on the evolutionary ecology of mimicry, the evolution of coloration in birds, and evolution of avian eggs; the research is a model of integrative science, drawing on computer vision, comparative genomics and bioengineering as well as behavioral and evolutionary ecology. Dr. Stoddard’s work is at the forefront of technological innovation, and brings important new quantitative approaches to both microevolutionary and macroevolutionary behavioral studies. The highly interdisciplinary nature of Dr. Stoddard’s work is indicated by the publication of 20+ papers to date in diverse journals, including Evolution as well asNature Communications, American Naturalist, Proceedings of the Royal Society, and Behavioral Ecology. 

Past Dobzhansky Prize winners: