Medals
Darwin Badge
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”, the Presidium decided at the Leopoldina Annual Assembly in 1959 to award a Darwin Badge to 18 of the world’s leading geneticists and evolutionary scientists “who have performed outstanding work to further develop Darwin’s ideas and shed light on the great mysteries of evolution.”
Image: Markus Scholz for the Leopoldina
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s main publication, the Leopoldina awarded the Darwin Badge for a second time in its history. In 2009, the exceptional evolutionary scientist and Academy member Svante Pääbo received the honor for the breakthroughs he achieved in the fields of evolution and anthropology.
| Year | Laureate | City | Discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Svante Pääbo (born 1955) | Leipzig | |
| 1959 | Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900 - 1975) | Davis | |
| 1959 | Nikolaj P. Dubinin (1905 - 1998) | Moskau | |
| 1959 | Sir Roland Aylmer Fisher (1890 - 1962) | Cambridge | |
| 1959 | Åke Gustafsson (1908 - 1988) | Lund | |
| 1959 | Hitoshi Kihara (1893 - 1986) | Misima | |
| 1959 | Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (1902 - 1982) | Utrecht | |
| 1959 | Alfred Kühn (1885 - 1968) | Tübingen | |
| 1959 | Arne Müntzing (1903 - 1984) | Lund | |
| 1959 | Hermann Joseph Muller (1890 - 1967) | Bloomington | |
| 1959 | Otto Renner (1883 - 1960) | Munich | |
| 1959 | Bernhard Rensch (1900 - 1990) | Münster/Westf. | |
| 1959 | Elisabeth Schiemann (1881 - 1972) | Berlin | |
| 1959 | Ivan Ivanovic Schmalhausen (1884 - 1963) | Moskau | |
| 1959 | George Simpson (1902 - 1984) | New York | |
| 1959 | Hans Stubbe (1902 - 1989) | Gatersleben | |
| 1959 | Nikolaj V. Timofeev-Resovskij (1900 - 1981) | Obninsk | |
| 1959 | Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg (1871 - 1962) | Vienna | |
| 1959 | Sergej S. Tschetverikov (1880 - 1959) | Gorkij/Wolga |
The scientific achievements of the Darwin Badge winners are listed in: Nova Acta Leopoldina N.F. No. 143, Leipzig 1959, pp. 25–28; bibliographies and portraits ibid., pp. 245–310.
