Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers ’98 has become the youngest woman to win the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for her work studying mycorrhizal fungi and restoring ecosystems using native fungi.
The prize is administered by the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and is often described as the “Nobel Prize for the environment.”
Instituted in 1973, the Tyler Prize has been awarded to other notable environmental leaders, including Jane Goodall, Michael E. Mann and Gretchen Daily.
Kiers received her $250,000 award at a ceremony in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on April 23, 2026, where she also gave a state of the environment address. Read more about the Tyler Prize.
Kiers explores the relationship between plants, fungi, and other microbes. In 2021 she founded the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), to map and protect the world’s underground fungi.
In 2025, she was awarded a so-called genius grant by the MacArthur Foundation and in 2023, she became the youngest scientist ever to win the prestigious Spinoza Prize (sometimes referred to as the “Dutch Nobel”).
Kiers was profiled in the fall 2024 issue of Bowdoin Magazine.
