The Genetics Society of America (GSA) has awarded the George W. Beadle Award to Sudhir Kumar, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Biology and Director of the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine at Temple University.

Kumar is “honored for his extensive scientific contributions, notably his efforts to democratize evolutionary genetics, his commitment to breaking down barriers to scientific inquiry globally, and his advocacy for open science. This recognition highlights MEGA software's creation, dissemination, and modernization, making complex evolutionary analyses accessible. The award also spotlights significant contributions to developing the TimeTree online platform of species divergence times.”

Currently in its seventh major release, Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) provides facilities for assembling sequence alignments, exploring data and results interactively, inferring evolutionary trees, estimating distances and diversity, inferring ancestral sequences, computing timetrees, and testing for selection. MEGA has been used extensively in a variety of research disciplines, including AIDS/HIV research, virology, microbiology, plant biology, conservation biology, systematics, developmental evolution, population genetics and molecular evolution.

The award, named after Nobel Laureate George W. Beadle, celebrates the accomplishments of individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the community of genetics researchers. Past recipients include luminaries such as Shirley M. Tilghman, who was recognized for seminal work in mammalian developmental genetics; Michael Snyder, who developed genetic technologies and led ENCODE’s project to map regulatory regions of the human genome; and Michael Ashburner, who developed and popularized Drosophila genetics.

Beyond this accomplishment, Kumar previously received Distinguished Alumnus Awards from Birla Institutes of Technology and Science (2024) and Penn State University (2015). He has also been honored with a community service award from the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (2017), the Innovation in Functional Genomics Award from Burroughs Wellcome Fund (2000), and a Highly Cited Researcher designation from Clarivate’s Web of Science. Additionally, Kumar is an elected Fellow of the American Association of Advancement of Science (AAAS). 

Learn more about GSA and see the full list of 2025 awardees here.