Eörs Szathmáry is professor at The Institute of Evolution, Centre for Ecological Research in Budapest, Hungary. His research focuses on the common principles of the major steps in evolution, such as the origin of life, the emergence of cells, the origin of animal societies, and the appearance of human language. Together with his mentor, John Maynard Smith, he has published two important books which serve as the main references in the field (The Major Transitions in Evolution, Freeman, 1995, and The Origins of Life, Oxford University Press, 1999). His recent endeavor is the quest for real-time evolution inside the brain during complex cognition. 

A Hungarian evolutionary biologist, Szathmáry received the New Europe Prize In 1996, and shortly thereafter, he established the New Europe School for Theoretical Biology Foundation (NEST) with the aim to help young Hungarian theoretical biologists. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea and EMBO. A few of his contributions to theoretical evolutionary biology include: a mathematical description of some phases of early evolution; a scenario for the origin of the genetic code; and a general framework to discuss the major transitions in evolution.