Evolutionary Biologist Miriam Liedvogel appointed

Dr Miriam Liedvogel, an evolutionary biologist, has been appointed Professor of Ornithology at the Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences.

She is also the new Director of the Institute for Avian Research 'Vogelwarte Helgoland' in Wilhelmshaven. She previously led an independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön. Liedvogel studied biology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in Heidelberg and in Oxford (England), where she graduated with a Master's degree in Integrative Biosciences. In 2002 she moved to Oldenburg and completed her PhD there in 2006 with a thesis on orientation mechanisms in migratory birds. She then held postdoctoral research positions at the Universities of Oxford, Lund (Sweden) and Freiburg. In 2014, she moved to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, where she used blackcaps as a model system for studying the genetic architecture of migratory behaviour. She combines exact characterization of migratory behaviour in the field and under controlled laboratory conditions with cutting-edge sequencing methods to investigate the molecular foundations of bird migration.