The College of Sciences is pleased to announce Will Ratcliff as the first recipient of the John C. and Leslie C. Sutherland Professorship. This endowed faculty position recognizes outstanding contributions in research and teaching, particularly those that advance the understanding of biological systems through interdisciplinary applications of mathematics, physics, and statistics.

Ratcliff, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences, was selected for his innovative research and dedication to education, which have made a significant impact on the scientific community and the Institute. His appointment is effective July 1, 2025.

“Will has established himself as a leading scientist studying the evolution of biological complexity, developing an innovative research program that demonstrates the tremendous power of integrating physics and biology to understand fundamental questions in life science,” says Todd Streelman, professor and Chair of the School of Biological Sciences. 

“His experimental vision, commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration, and exceptional record mentoring the next generation of scientists embody the values this chair was established to promote,” Streelman adds. “Will is precisely the kind of transformative scientist who can carry forward the Sutherlands' legacy of bridging physics and biology to understand the fundamental principles governing life itself.”

The Sutherland Professorship comes with an award of $40,000 per year in research funds and is renewable every five years, providing valuable support for ongoing and future projects. 

The faculty endowment is made possible through generous support from John C. and Leslie C. Sutherland. A triple Jacket, John C. Sutherland (B.S. PHYS 1962, M.S. PHYS 1964, Ph.D. PHYS 1967) serves as dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Augusta University and is a member of the Georgia Tech College of Sciences External Advisory Board.

Meet Will Ratcliff

Will Ratcliff is an evolutionary biologist who joined the School of Biological Sciences in 2014. He has served as director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences since 2021. After earning his B.S. in Plant Biology from the University of California, Davis and his Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Minnesota, Ratcliff completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, where he developed the groundbreaking 'snowflake yeast' model system.

Ratcliff's research focuses on understanding one of biology's most fundamental questions: how complex multicellular life evolves from single-celled ancestors. His innovative approach combines experimental evolution with mathematical modeling, biophysics, and synthetic biology, overcoming a fundamental limitation in the field. Rather than attempting to infer evolutionary dynamics that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, his work allows direct observation of this transition in real time. In 2018, he launched the Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE), which has since become one of the longest-running evolution experiments.

The MuLTEE has revealed how physics serves as a crucial scaffold for the evolution of multicellular life, establishing the fundamental conditions that allow natural selection to act on groups of cells rather than individual cells alone. His team has shown how the physics of cellular packing naturally drives group reproduction, and how principles of maximum entropy underpin the origin of novel, heritable multicellular traits. As snowflake yeast in the MuLTEE continue to evolve to become more complex, they’ve observed how these organisms solve key multicellular challenges, evolving mechanically robust bodies, solving diffusion limitation, and optimizing their life cycle through novel collective behaviors and cellular specialization. 

Ratcliff's research extends beyond multicellularity to include diverse aspects of evolutionary biology, such as studying the dynamics of bacterial warfare and investigating Earth's largest and oldest organism, the approximately 80,000-year-old Quaking Aspen 'Pando'. His work has garnered significant attention in major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, National Geographic, Science, Nature, Quanta, and The Smithsonian, and has been featured in books such as Pulitzer Prize winner Siddhartha Mukherjee's Song of the Cell.