Professor Michael Doebeli has been awarded the 2014 CAIMS Research Prize.  From the citation:

 

“CAIMS*SCMAI is pleased to announce the winner of the 2014 CAIMS*SCMAI Research Award. This is the society’s preeminent research award and recognizes innovative and exceptional research contributions in applied or industrial mathematics. The 2014 awardee is Professor Michael Doebeli of the University of British Columbia for his contributions to the mathematical theory of the evolution of diversity and the evolution of cooperation.

 

Michael Doebeli is one of the foremost applied mathematicians working in evolutionary biology in the world. He is the main authority for the mathematical theory of the evolution of organismal diversity, and his research led to a paradigm shift in how scientists understand the origin of new species. Once viewed as theoretically impossible, biologists now accept Doebeli’s work showing that sympatric speciation, that is, the formation of new species in the absence of geographic separation, is theoretically plausible, and that it occurs in natural and experimental systems. Doebeli has also made major contributions to the theory of cooperation, where his work has led to a unified understanding of the evolution of cooperation in natural systems ranging from microbes to complex human societies.”