Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Diversity 2021 Young Investigator Award is Dr. Enrico Lunghi.

Dr. Enrico Lunghi is a Postdoc fellow at the Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. Dr. Lunghi’s research interests are mostly related to the ecology, behavior, and conservation of cave species, with particular emphasis on European cave salamanders (genus Hydromantes – Speleomantes), animals representing his preferred model species. Dr. Lunghi received his PhD in 2018 and has an outstanding publication record, comprising 46 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals. Nonetheless, Dr. Lunghi has recently co-edited a Special Issue on Cave communities in Diversity. Lunghi’s Scopus Scientific Citations number is 358 and his Hirsch index is 10. He is clearly a rising star in the field of ecology and zoology. As a single applicant, Dr. Lunghi has obtained multiple awards, including the President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI), the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund grant, and the Ralph W. Stone Graduate Fellowship in Cave and Karst Studies from the National Speleological Society. This is an outstanding achievement in today’s competitive environment. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Lunghi for his outstanding achievements.

As the awardee, Dr. Enrico Lunghi will receive an honorarium of 2000 CHF, an offer to publish a paper free of charge before 31 December 2021 in Diversity after peer-review, and a certificate.

We would like to thank all the nominators from various fields of study for their participation and all the Award Committee Members for their evaluation of the abundant excellent nominations.

Prof. Dr. Michael Wink
Editor-in-Chief, Diversity