Prof. Dr. Iain D. Couzin
IMPRS Faculty
Curriculum Vitae
Iain Couzin is Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and a Professor and Director (Speaker) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) Excellence Cluster “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Previously he was a full Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University.
His work aims to reveal the principles that underlie evolved collective behavior, and consequently, his research includes the study of a wide range of biological systems, from neural collectives to insect swarms, fish schools, and primate groups. In recognition of his research, he has been recipient of the Searle Scholar Award in 2008, top 5 most cited papers of the decade in animal behavior research 1999-2010, National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award in 2012, the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London in 2013, a Web of Science Global Highly Cited Researcher 2018-2022 and 2024, the Lagrange Prize (for fundamental contributions to complexity science) in 2019, the Falling Walls Life Sciences Award and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (Germany’s highest research honor) in 2022, the Rothschild Distinguished Fellowship at the University of Cambridge in 2023, and the Fyssen International Prize in 2024.