Student Representatives

Call 2026 graphic

Call for applications for the next Student Representative 2026 – 2028

ESEB wel­comes state­ments of interest for one of the two Stu­dent Rep­res­ent­at­ive pos­i­tions. The appoin­ted stu­dent will serve a two-year term start­ing in August 2026.

Stu­dent Rep­res­ent­at­ives provide a stu­dent per­spect­ive to the ESEB Coun­cil. They will attend ESEB Coun­cil meet­ings (3–4 per year, online) and devel­op activ­it­ies to pro­mote stu­dent involve­ment and interests in the Soci­ety. Stu­dent mem­bers should devel­op ways to pro­mote ESEB among bio­logy stu­dents and ways in which ESEB can bet­ter serve its stu­dent mem­bers. Stu­dent rep­res­ent­at­ives should aim to attend one EMPSEB meet­ing and/or one ESEB congress.

Eli­gib­il­ity
Applic­ants must meet the fol­low­ing criteria:

  • Hold an act­ive ESEB Stu­dent Membership.
  • Cur­rently pur­sue a PhD in evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy or related area.
  • Be able to com­mit to the role on a vol­un­tary basis for the full two-year term.

Applic­a­tion

Applic­a­tions must include

  • a max­im­um one-page state­ment of interest, includ­ing a pro­pos­al what you would pro­mote as ESEB stu­dent representative
  • a CV, and
  • a short sup­port let­ter by the super­visor includ­ing the con­firm­a­tion of the PhD status.

Please sub­mit your applic­a­tion as one pdf file (not exceed­ing 10 Mb) by email to the ESEB Office (office@eseb.org; sub­ject: StudRep2026).

Dead­line: Fri­day, 19 June 2026

We will con­firm receipt of all applic­a­tions with­in a week. If you do not receive this con­firm­a­tion, please con­tact the ESEB Office again.

Elec­tion process

The Sec­ret­ary togeth­er with the cur­rent Stu­dent Rep­res­ent­at­ives will screen the applic­a­tions for eli­gib­il­ity. The names and motiv­a­tion let­ters of the eli­gible can­did­ates will be for­war­ded to stu­dent mem­ber­ship in an elec­tion. The can­did­ate with the most votes will be appoin­ted as the next Stu­dent representative.

Current Student Representatives

Gokul Bhaskaran (2025 – 2027)

Jagi­el­lo­ni­an Uni­ver­sity, PL

Gok­ul is a PhD stu­dent at Jagi­el­lo­ni­an Uni­ver­sity in Kraków, Poland. His research focuses on exper­i­ment­al evol­u­tion in bank voles, invest­ig­at­ing how selec­tion for pred­at­ory beha­viour drives changes in physiology and oth­er traits. He is also inter­ested in sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion, pub­lic rela­tions, and event organisation

Picture G. Bhaskaran
© G. Bhaskaran

Con­tact: egsr@eseb.org

Florian Strahodinsky (2024 – 2026)

picture F. Strahodinsky
© F. Strahodinsky

Insti­tute of Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy Aus­tria, AT

Flori­an is a PhD stu­dent in his final year at Insti­tute of Sci­ence and Tech­no­logy Aus­tria (ISTA), Klosterneuburg. He has been pas­sion­ate about ants since his child­hood and stud­ied med­ic­al bio­tech­no­logy. Switch­ing field to evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy allowed him to com­bine his back­grounds and he now stud­ies the host-patho­gen inter­ac­tion of ants and nem­at­odes. Bey­ond, he is a suc­cess­ful mar­tial artist teach­ing Kar­ate and an avid sci­ence communicator.

Con­tact: egsr@eseb.org

Past Student Representatives

Insti­tu­tions lis­ted at the time of the term of the stu­dent representative

  • 2023 – 2025 Oon­agh Bark­er, Uni­ver­sity of East Anglia, UK
  • 2022 – 2024  Vikt­or Kovalov, Uni­ver­sity of Zurich, CH
  • 2021 – 2023  Falk Nagies, Hein­rich Heine Uni­ver­sity Düs­sel­dorf, DE
  • 2020 – 2022  Ron­an O’Sul­li­van, Uni­ver­sity Col­lege Cork, IE
  • 2018 – 2020  Ben Aux­i­er, Wagen­in­gen Uni­ver­sity, NL
  • 2018 – 2019  Katar­ina Matvijev, Uni­versité libre de Bruxelles, BE