Professor Rebecca Kilner elected a Fellow of the Royal Society

Published: Wednesday 6 May 2021

Pembroke Fellow Professor Rebecca Kilner (2019) has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for her discoveries in how social behaviour drives evolutionary change.

Rebecca is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the University Museum of Zoology.

Rebecca said: “I’m astonished, honoured and delighted to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. But this honour should really be shared with everyone I have ever worked with. Science is a team effort and I’ve been incredibly lucky to collaborate with brilliant colleagues throughout my career.”

While Rebecca’s earlier work with birds and insects showed how social behaviour is the outcome of adaptive evolution, her most recent research has demonstrated how social behaviour contributes to further evolutionary change: by acting as a ‘hidden’ agent of natural selection, by changing the pace at which traits change in response to selection, and providing diverse mechanisms for the non-genetic inheritance of key fitness-related traits.

This is not the first time the Royal Society has recognised Rebecca's work. In 1998 she was awarded a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship for outstanding postdoctoral scientists and engineers. In 2015 she received a Wolfson Research Merit Award and, in 2017, the Theo Murphy Blue Skies Award.

In total, 60 scientists were recognised this year for their "contributions to science, both in fundamental research resulting in greater understanding, and also in leading and directing scientific and technological progress in industry and research establishments."

Rebecca joins five other current Pembroke Fellows (Professor Norman Fleck, Professor Mike Payne, Professor Vikram Deshpande, Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly and Professor Clare Grey) as members of the Fellowship, which permits them to use the letters FRS after their names.