ECL Unit Leader Leo Speidel elected a 2026 AYSF Fellow in Life Sciences

Leo Speidel, a RIKEN ECL Unit Leader at the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) and RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute(PRI), has been elected as a 2026 Asian Young Scientist Fellowship (AYSF) Fellow in LifeSciences. AYSF is a privately funded research fellowship that aims to encourage and support young scientists in Asia to carry out creative and transformative research. The Fellowship annually selects early-career scientists in three fundamental disciplines: 1) Life Science, 2) Physical Science, and 3) Mathematics and Computer Science. Speidel’s research focuses on the development and application of new mathematical and statistical techniques to reveal human evolution, with the goal of reconstructing genome-wide genealogies across individuals and species. He was selected for this year’s AYSF in recognition of his pioneering achievements.