Loeske Kruuk facts for kids

Loeske E. B. Kruuk FRS is an evolutionary ecologist who is a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded the 2018 European Society for Evolutionary Biology President's Award. In 2023, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Early life and education

Kruuk started her academic career in 1988 studying mathematics at Somerville College, Oxford. She switched to biology with an MSc in Ecology at the University of Aberdeen, and then a PhD in population genetics at the University of Edinburgh, where she investigated amphibian hybrid zones with Nick Barton. For postdoctoral researcher with Tim Clutton-Brock at the University of Cambridge and Josephine Pemberton at the University of Edinburgh, she studied evolutionary processes in red deer. During this position, she started to appreciate the power of long-term wild animal population studies in understanding evolutionary ecology and quantitative genetics.

Research and career

In 2000, Kruuk held a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and became Professor of Evolutionary Ecology in 2009. She moved to the Australian National University in 2012, where she was awarded an Australian Research Council fellowship. Her research laboratory investigated the influence of climate change on animal populations. She mainly considered wild vertebrate species, including red deer, Soay sheep, and Australian wrens. Her work considers evolution and natural selection in wild animal populations, effects of ongoing environmental change, quantitative genetics, inbreeding and inbreeding depression, maternal effects and life history evolution. She won an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship in 2020.

In 2021, Kruuk was selected as one of the Royal Society Research Professors, which allowed her to return to the University of Edinburgh. There she investigates the impacts of environmental change on natural populations.

She is an Editor of the biological journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B Biological Sciences.

Awards and honours

• 2006 Philip Leverhulme Prize
• 2008 Zoological Society of London Scientific Medal
• 2012 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• 2012 Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
• 2014 Elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization
• 2015 The Genetics Society Mary Lyon Medal
• 2018 European Society for Evolutionary Biology President's Award
• 2020 Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship
• 2021 Royal Society Research Professor
• 2023 Fellow of the Royal Society

Selected publications