Staff profile

Christian is a behavioural ecologist, focussing on how animals use sensory information to inform their behaviour, and how animal sensory systems are shaped by environmental conditions. He has completed a B.Sc. in Biology at the Christian-Albrecht-University in Kiel (Germany), followed by a M.Sc. in Marine Biology at the University of Algarve (Portugal). He then worked for one year as a Research Assistant at the Julius-Maximilians-University in Wuerzburg (Germany), investigating the visual flower inspection and proboscis guidance behaviour in hawkmoths, before starting his PhD at the University of Cambridge (UK). Throughout this PhD, Christian explored how dynamic lighting conditions affect the visual processing, hunting success, habitat selection, and camouflage of marine invertebrates, such as cephalopods and crustaceans. Within the scope of his postdoctoral position in the Insect Neuro Lab at Durham University, Christian is now investigating the behavioural and physiological adaptations mosquito pupae have evolved to avoid desiccation upon loss of their aquatic environment.