Darwin–Wallace Medal

In a nutshell

The Darwin–Wallace Medal is a medal awarded by the Linnean Society of London for "major advances in evolutionary biology". Historically, the medals have been awarded every 50 years, beginning in 1908. That year marked 50 years after the joint presentation by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace of two scientific papers—On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection—to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858. Fittingly, Wallace was one of the first recipients of the medal, in his case it was, exceptionally, in gold, rather than the silver version presented in the six other initial awards. However, in 2008 the Linnean Society announced that due to the continuing importance of evolutionary research, the medal will be awarded on an annual basis beginning in 2010.

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Awardees

1908

The first award was of a gold medal to Alfred Russel Wallace, and silver medals to six other distinguished scientists:

1958

20 silver medals were awarded:

Edgar Anderson
E. Pavlovsky
Maurice Caullery
Bernhard Rensch
Ronald A. Fisher
G. Gaylord Simpson
C. R. Florin
Carl Skottsberg
Roger Heim
H. Hamshaw Thomas
J. B. S. Haldane
Erik Stensiö
John Hutchinson
Göte Turesson
Julian Huxley
Victor van Straelen
Ernst Mayr
D. M. S. Watson
H. J. Muller
John Christopher Willis (posthumously)

2008

13 silver medals were awarded, including 2 posthumously:

Nick Barton
M. W. Chase
Bryan Clarke
Joseph Felsenstein
Stephen Jay Gould (posthumously)
Peter R. Grant
Rosemary Grant
James Mallet
Lynn Margulis
John Maynard Smith (posthumously)
Mohamed Noor
H. Allen Orr
Linda Partridge

From 2010

Brian Charlesworth (2010)
James A. Lake (2011)
Loren H. Rieseberg (2012)
Godfrey Hewitt (2013)
Dolph Schluter (2014)
Roger Butlin (2015)
Pamela S. Soltis and Douglas E. Soltis (2016)
John N. Thompson (2017)
Josephine Pemberton (2018)
David Reich and Svante Pääbo (2019)
Spencer Barrett (2020)
Sarah Otto (2021)
David Jablonski (2022)
Ziheng Yang (2023)
Peter Crane (2024)
Trudy Mackay (2025)

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