Dr. Helmut Hillebrand is an ecologist specializing in biodiversity dynamics and ecological stability across ecosystems. Trained as an experimental ecologist, his research has evolved to focus on large-scale data analyses and synthesis to understand the mechanisms shaping biodiversity change. His work integrates ecological stoichiometry, ecosystem functioning, and spatial community ecology to assess the impacts of environmental shifts on biodiversity.
Dr. Hillebrand is currently Director of the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) and a Professor for Plankton Ecology at ICBM. His career spans appointments at the Universities of Cologne, Kiel, and Uppsala. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kiel and a Biology degree from the University of Oldenburg.

Hanna Kokko is a professor of evolutionary ecology at the University of Mainz. She is primarily a theoretician — but one who loves working with empiricists and also, in her own work, hopes to improve communication between these approaches. Her research focuses on a variety of topics, ranging from sexual reproduction and sex role evolution to space use, dispersal and migration, social evolution, interspecific interactions and life history theory, including ageing. These endeavours have been recognized with prizes such as the ASAB’s Outstanding New Researcher Award, the British Ecological Society’s Founders’ Price, and the Oikos Per Brinck Award. In 2024 she was chosen as one of “50 Scientists that Inspire” as listed by Cell Press.

Niels C. Rattenborg, PhD, is the head of the Avian Sleep research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Germany. He aims to gain insight into the evolution and functions of sleep through studying birds using various methods, including functional magnetic resonance imaging. Rattenborg is also interested in understanding how birds reconcile the inherent need for sleep with ecological demands for wakefulness, such as avoiding predation, competing for mates, and flying non-stop for weeks at a time. He is pioneering the use of microchips to measure sleep-related brain activity in animals in the wild. Rattenborg received the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award from the Sleep Research Society for demonstrating that birds can sleep in flight.

Eric Schranz specializes in plant evolutionary genomics, focusing on understanding the genetic mechanisms that drive plant diversity and adaptation, including crop wild relatives and minor crop domestication. His work emphasizes comparative genomics, integrating genetics, ethnobotany, bioinformatics, and evolutionary biology, with the aim of contributing to global food and nutrition security. Eric is currently Professor at the Biosystematics Group of the Wageningen University.

Lukas graduated as a Medical Doctor at KU Leuven in 2001. During his specialist training in psychiatry, he was granted a PhD-fellowship of the Research Foundation – Flanders, resulting in his doctoral thesis ‘Psychobiological mechanisms in functional dyspepsia. Converging evidence from psychophysiology & functional brain imaging?’ (KU Leuven, 2008). He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders at the Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Diseases (TARGID) of KU Leuven from 2009 until 2012. In 2012, he was appointed assistant research professor of the KU Leuven Special Research Fund, allowing him to establish his own group, the Laboratory for Brain-Gut Axis Studies (LaBGAS). His research has been internationally authoritative, as reflected by more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, numerous invited and abstract presentations at scientific meetings, and several international research awards. In 2020, Lukas got granted an ERC Consolidator Grant MoodBugs, focusing on microbiota-gut-brain signaling mechanisms mediating the impact of the gut microbiota on stress and fear responses in humans. In 2023, he got promoted to research professor.

Klemens Eriksson is a coastal community ecologist working at the interface between land and sea, currently focused on putting marine fish ecology on the scientific agenda in the Netherlands. Although coastal fish have historically played a vital role in coastal and riverine economies, their ecological significance has been largely overlooked in the Netherlands. This gap in knowledge is especially urgent as climate change and related infrastructure projects pose increasing threats to coastal fish populations by creating new barriers and pressures. In recent years, Klemens and his team have begun mapping fish distributions and ecological interactions along the Dutch coast. In the coming years, they will conduct mechanistic experiments to uncover the functional roles of fish communities, with the long-term goal of informing how the Dutch coastline can be managed to support both human needs and coastal biodiversity.
Klemens’ broader research interests lie in understanding how global biodiversity loss affects the functioning and resilience of natural ecosystems. For over two decades, his work has explored how biodiversity shapes ecological communities and their responses to major environmental challenges, such as climate change and nutrient enrichment.

Pablo Tittonell is Professor of Agroecology and Sustainable Landscapes at the University of Groningen, holding a WWF-endowed Chair on Resilient Landscapes at the Groningen Institute of Evolutionary Life Sciences. He is also a Senior Associate Researcher at CIRAD (France) and an Honorary Member of Argentina’s National Science Council (CONICET). Previously, he coordinated Argentina’s national program on Natural Resources and Environment and was Chair Professor at Wageningen University. With a background in agronomy and a PhD in Production Ecology, his expertise spans agroecology, soil fertility, biodiversity, and systems analysis. His work focuses on human–nature interactions, multifunctional landscapes, and adaptation to global change. He has led and contributed to international research projects across Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and began his career at TSBF-CIAT in Kenya and the University of Zimbabwe.
Pablo has authored over 170 scientific articles (H-index 45), contributed to the IPBES report, and serves as an editor and advisor to international organizations including FAO and CGIAR. He has also trained numerous PhD students and postdocs globally.

Jean-Christophe Billeter is a neurogeneticist investigating the mechanistic basis of social behavior, focusing on how genetic and environmental factors interact to shape brain function. His research integrates molecular, cellular, and evolutionary approaches to understand how social interactions influence physiology and behavior. Billeter's early work in the labs of Jeff Hall (USA) and Stephen Goodwin (UK) explored the genetic programs driving sexually dimorphic neural development in Drosophila melanogaster. He later joined Joel Levine’s lab (Canada) to study how social experiences shape individual behavior and physiology, deepening his interest in the evolutionary mechanisms underlying social interactions.
Since establishing his lab at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (University of Groningen). Billeter has combined evolutionary theory with experimental biology to investigate social behaviors in simple model organisms. His team developed quantitative paradigms to study sociability in Drosophila, leveraging its genetic tractability to uncover fundamental mechanisms that may extend to other species.

Joana Falcao Salles discovered her passion for microbial ecology during her undergraduate studies in Brazil, where she worked on nitrogen-fixing bacteria associated with sugarcane. She further developed this interest during her PhD at Leiden University (The Netherlands, 2005) and a three-year postdoctoral position in Lyon, France. Since 2008, she has been based at the University of Groningen, where she established a vibrant, diverse, and multidisciplinary research group. Her team combines ecological and evolutionary theories to investigate how microbial communities are formed and how they influence their environment—generating insights that are valuable for both fundamental science and applied research.

Sanne Moorman was appointed Assistant Professor in Neurobiology in 2023. Her research focuses on the behavioural and neural mechanisms underlying auditory-vocal learning and memory in songbirds, which she uses as a model system for understanding human speech acquisition.
During her PhD at Utrecht University with Johan Bolhuis, she investigated neural activity in juvenile songbirds during the song learning phase using immediate early gene expression. Her postdoctoral work included in vivo calcium imaging to record neural activity during sleep (with Tim Gardner, Boston University), local pharmacological infusions to manipulate neural activity and assess their effects on song performance (with Mimi Kao, Tufts University), and small, localized injections of anatomical tracers to study neural connectivity.

Maurine Dietz is a biologist specializing in ecophysiology and host-microbiome interactions. After earning a biology degree at the University of Groningen, she completed a PhD at Utrecht University’s Veterinary Faculty, studying thermoregulation in poultry species. She then joined Theunis Piersma’s group at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionaly Life Scinces (University of Groningen), researching phenotypic flexibility in red knots. Currently part of Irene Tieleman’s group, her research explores the role of gut microbiota in avian adaptation. She investigates how gut bacteria help birds respond to environmental changes, including seasonal adaptations, and how these microbiomes are acquired during early development.