LMU Visiting Professor Eörs Szathmáry Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

Enlarge

Professor Eörs Szathmáry, Guest Professor at the Faculty of Biology at LMU Munich and Director of the Center for the Conceptual Foundations of Science of the Parmenides Foundation (Pöcking) has been elected international member of the National Academy of Science of the USA.

The National Academy of Sciences of the United States is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific bodies. It was
established by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, during the Civil War, to provide the nation with advice based on the best available scientific knowledge. Its members are elected by the Academy’s existing membership in recognition of outstanding and sustained original research; membershipis regarded as one of the highest professional honors in science.

The Academy’s significance lies not only in its prestige, but also in its role as an independent, evidence-based scientific authority on major questions in public life, education, health, the environment, and technology. To be elected to this body as an evolutionary biologist means that one’s research into the history and workings of the living world has been recognized by one of the highest forums of international science.

Professor Szathmáry’s work has placed special emphasis on the comparative and theoretical study of the major evolutionary
transitions, with particular attention to the origins of life and natural language. In addition, he has made major contributions to the
theory of replicators, as well as to the comparative study of learning and evolution. His books have been published in a dozen countries. His decisive mentor is the late John Maynard Smith, father of evolutionary game theory.