Richard Lenski Awarded Microbiology Society Prize Medal 2025
Professor Richard Lenski, a Michigan State University Hannah Distinguished Professor in the department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, has been awarded the Microbiology Society Prize Medal 2025. The medal is awarded to an outstanding microbiologist who is a global leader in their field and whose work has had significant impact in microbiology and beyond.
Lenski will receive an engraved medal and £1,000 at the Society’s Annual Conference in Liverpool, England in the spring of 2025.
Lenski did his undergraduate studies at Oberlin College in Ohio and received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he conducted ecological research on insects.
After completing his doctoral degree, Lenski did postdoctoral work in microbiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he studied the coevolution of bacteria and phages. Professor Lenski joined the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, in 1985, before moving to Michigan State University in 1991.
Lenski is best known for his groundbreaking research in evolutionary biology, the E.coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment, or LTEE, which he started in 1988, and which continues to this day. He and his team have followed 12 populations of E. coli while they evolve in the lab for 75,000 generations. The LTEE offers a unique record of evolution, providing insights into the dynamics of adaptation by natural selection, the mechanisms of genome evolution, the repeatability of evolutionary changes, and even the origin of new functions. He was also one of the founders of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action at MSU.
With an interdisciplinary team, Professor Lenski has also led pioneering research on the evolution of digital organisms—computer programs that replicate, mutate, compete, and evolve to perform new functions.
This award is the latest is a decorated career for Lenski. He was awarded fellowships from both the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations. He is also a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Lenski has served as President of the Society for the Study of Evolution, and he received a Friend of Darwin Award from the National Center for Science Education for his public-facing work discussing evolution and its importance.
Finally, Lenski is also known for being an exceptional mentor and role model, having mentored some 30 graduate students and postdoctoral scientists who are now on the faculties of universities around the world.
Commenting on receiving the Microbiology Society Prize Medal 2025, Professor Lenski said: “I’m deeply honored to receive the Prize Medal from the Microbiology Society. Like most awards in science, it reflects the work of many talented people – the students, postdocs, and colleagues who’ve worked with me to ask and answer questions, and my mentors who helped me learn how to do science and mentor others. I’d also like to thank my family for tolerating my scientific obsessions for all these years.”
Read the full story on the Microbiology Society website.
