Distinguished Fellows

Dieter Ebert is full pro­fess­or at Basel Uni­ver­sity and a per­man­ent fel­low at the Insti­tute of Advanced Stud­ies in Ber­lin (Wis­senschaft­skolleg). Dieter Eber­t’s research interest include evol­u­tion­ary eco­logy, genet­ics and gen­om­ics. He made import­ant con­tri­bu­tions to our under­stand­ing of host-para­site coe­volu­tion and loc­al adapt­a­tion. With his research group he aims to under­stand nat­ur­al phe­nom­ena by invest­ig­at­ing the evol­u­tion­ary mech­an­isms behind them, e.g. host-para­site inter­ac­tions, para­site vir­ulence, meta­pop­u­la­tion struc­ture, genomics/genetics of adapt­a­tion in space and time and phen­o­typ­ic and gen­om­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion. Dieter has been an ESEB mem­ber since his PhD, served on the JEB edit­or­i­al board and the ESEB coun­cil (1999–2003). As the Sec­ret­ary of ESEB from 2003 to 2009, Dieter led the effort of estab­lish­ing the cur­rent con­sti­tu­tion and bylaws of the Soci­ety, and regis­ter­ing it as a non-profit organ­iz­a­tion, which were essen­tial for the long-term sta­bil­ity of the Soci­ety. In 2013 he was elec­ted ESEB Vice-pres­id­ent. His vis­ion of evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy encom­passes bet­ter integ­ra­tion of evol­u­tion­ary think­ing in any aspect of the life sci­ences by provid­ing explan­a­tions that add value and pre­dict­ive power to the prox­im­ate mech­an­isms oth­er fields of bio­logy typ­ic­ally focus for. He believes that the ESEB com­munity should push fur­ther for inclu­sion of this inter­dis­cip­lin­ary and syn­er­gist­ic per­spect­ive in school and uni­ver­sity cur­ricula and in research agendas.

Web­site link: https://www.evolution.unibas.ch/people/dieter/

Ophélie Ronce is research dir­ect­or at the Insti­tute of Evol­u­tion Sci­ences in Mont­pel­li­er. She stud­ies inter­ac­tions between evol­u­tion­ary dynam­ics and demo­graphy. Her research ques­tions encom­pass the evol­u­tion of life his­tor­ies, aging, dis­pers­al, mat­ing sys­tems, loc­al adapt­a­tion, evol­u­tion­ary res­cue, eco­lo­gic­al spe­cial­iz­a­tion and spe­cies ranges. Her expert­ise is in the field of the­or­et­ic­al evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy study­ing feed­backs between evol­u­tion and eco­logy. She coordin­ated three large nation­al pro­jects in the past ten years on issues of adapt­a­tion to glob­al change and pub­lished sev­er­al impact­ful stud­ies ques­tion­ing the lim­its and pro­spects of phen­o­typ­ic plas­ti­city, range shifts and genet­ic adapt­a­tion in mit­ig­at­ing the neg­at­ive con­sequences of cli­mate change for biod­iversity. She is a life­time mem­ber of both ESEB and SSE. She has been an ESEB coun­cil mem­ber from 2007 to 2009 and from 2017 to 2023. She co-organ­ized the Second Joint Con­fer­ence on Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy in Mont­pel­li­er. She was elec­ted Pres­id­ent of ESEB, the Non-Amer­ic­an Vice pres­id­ent for SSE, chair of their Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee and mem­ber of their joint Pub­lic Policy Com­mit­tee with ASN. She helped in the recruit­ment of a man­aging edit­or and a new edit­or in chief for JEB using an open call for the first time, the cre­ation of a work­ing group on the future of the journ­al and the ini­ti­ation of nego­ti­ations for new con­tracts with pub­lish­ers. She advoc­ated for the launch­ing of an Envir­on­ment­al Impact Com­mit­tee, the writ­ing of a code-of-eth­ics for ESEB and the stronger involve­ment of the coun­cil and PhD stu­dents and postdocs rep­res­ent­at­ives in the Soci­ety activities.

Web­site link:  https://isem-evolution.fr/en/membre/ronce/

Roger But­lin is Pro­fess­or of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Shef­field, and a guest Pro­fess­or at the Uni­ver­sity of Gothen­burg. His con­tri­bu­tions to our under­stand­ing of the spe­ci­ation pro­cess were recog­nised in his elec­tion to the Pres­id­ency of ESEB between 2013–2015. Over many years, Roger has been act­ive in pro­mot­ing and serving ESEB. He organ­ised the ESEB Con­gress in Leeds (2003), and has ini­ti­ated and served on sev­er­al ESEB committees.

Read more about his research at Roger Butlin’s web­site at Shef­field University.

Isa­belle Olivieri (1957 – 2016), was an excep­tion­al evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gist spe­cial­ized in genet­ics and pop­u­la­tion bio­logy. She held a full pro­fess­or­ship at the Uni­ver­sity of Mont­pel­li­er, France. Her com­pre­hens­ive work on meta­pop­u­la­tions, dis­pers­al, demo­graphy, and the impact of nat­ur­al selec­tion is unique and rep­res­ents an excel­lent example of the import­ance of link­ing eco­lo­gic­al and evol­u­tion­ary pro­cesses. Isa­belle Olivieri has trained count­less stu­dents in evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy in France and through­out Europe. Not sur­pris­ingly, she is one of the few evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gists who was elec­ted as a mem­ber of EMBO. Isa­belle Olivieri has been a very influ­en­tial mem­ber of ESEB, well-known for her clear opin­ions. She was Pres­id­ent from 2007 until 2009, hence officer from 2005–2011, and she acted as ESEB Vice-Pres­id­ent from 1995 – 1997. From 2009 – 2013, Isa­belle Olivieri was a mem­ber of the ESEB out­reach com­mit­tee, and she joined the ESEB fin­ance com­mit­tee from 1991 – 1993 and again from 1995 – 1997. She con­trib­uted to the first ESEB con­gress in Mont­pel­li­er in 1993 and she was one of the people ini­ti­at­ing the first Joint con­gress togeth­er with ASN, CSEE, SBB, and SSE in Ott­awa, Canada, in 2012.

More about Isa­belle Olivieri is avail­able at the Uni­ver­sity of Mont­pel­li­er. Obit­u­ar­ies have been pub­lished in Evol­u­tion­ary Applic­a­tions and the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Biology

Rolf Hoek­stra, emer­it­us pro­fess­or of genet­ics at the Uni­ver­sity of Wagen­in­gen, is a dis­tin­guished the­or­et­ic­al evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gist. He was Edit­or-in-Chief of the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy between 1996 and 1999, and ESEB’s Pres­id­ent between 2003 and 2005.

Steph­en Ste­arns is Pro­fess­or at the Depart­ment of Eco­logy and Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy at Yale Uni­ver­sity. He was one of the founders of ESEB, the found­ing Edit­or of the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy, and ESEB’s Pres­id­ent between 1997 and 1999. Fur­ther­more, he served the Coun­cil between 2001 and 2005. See also “How the European Soci­ety for Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy and the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy were foun­ded”.

Read more about his research at Ste­arns’ web­site at Yale University.

John Maynard Smith FRS (1920 – 2004), one of the most influ­en­tial evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gists in the last dec­ades, was Pres­id­ent of ESEB between 1991 and 1993. He was Pro­fess­or of Bio­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Sus­sex, UK and author of sev­er­al books on evol­u­tion, both for sci­ent­ists and the gen­er­al pub­lic. Maynard Smith received many dis­tinc­tions, includ­ing the 1999 Cra­foord Prize awar­ded by the Swedish Academy of Sci­ences, the 2001 Kyoto Prize, and the Dar­win medal of the Roy­al Society.

Read more about John Maynard Smith at Wiki­pe­dia.