The winner of the John Maynard Smith Prize 2026 is Dr Wendy Valencia-Montoya, currently a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University, US. Dr Valencia-Montoya will present her research an the ESEB Hub Congress in 2027, and has been offered a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin.
The runner-up is Dr Jan Kreider, currently an EMBO postdoctoral fellow at Lund University, Sweden.