Julian Huxley (1887-1975), an English evolutionary biologist, was a prolific author and the leading figure in the mid-twentieth century effort to develop the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory. He was the first director of UNESCO, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, and the recipient of UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science in 1953, the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1956, and the Darwin-Wallace Medal of the Linnean Society in 1958.