The International Balzan Foundation recognized Rasmus Nielsen, a professor of statistics and integrative biology at UC Berkeley, with its 2026 Balzan Prize for Molecular Evolution. Nielsen shared the award with University College London’s Ziheng Yang for their pioneering and complementary contributions that have revealed how natural selection shapes genes and populations. The two have also developed widely used tools that have transformed the study of evolutionary adaptation.
The four annual Balzan Prizes for Science and Culture are awarded to interdisciplinary scholars and researchers who have distinguished themselves on an international level. The awards’ subject areas are decided the previous year (next year’s prizes focus on European constitutionalism, architectural history, Deep Earth dynamics, and plant immunity and pathogen resistance). The prize includes a substantial financial allocation, at least half of which must be spent on projects carried out by young researchers.
“I’m grateful for the recognition and for the support for our research,” said Nielsen. “The Balzan Prize will allow our lab to more thoroughly investigate the evolutionary mechanisms that have shaped who we are as humans.”
Nielsen is an expert in computational biology and human evolution. He has published hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, including widely referenced discoveries on human adaptation to high-altitude environments and on ancient human interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans. This April, Nielsen was one of four UC Berkeley faculty members to win the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
The 2026 Balzan Prizes will be presented in Rome on November 19, 2026 in the presence of the president of the Italian Republic.
Read more on the UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science.
