Born 1959 in Mehlingen. Study of biology and mathematics at the Univ. of Kaiserslautern, PhD (1988), German Habilitation 1996 at the LMU Munich, postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin and at Harvard (1989/1990 and 1991/1992) with a grant of the German Research Foundation, Junior Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Behavioural Physiology in Seewiesen (1993-1998), Head of the Department of Development and Behavioural Neurobiology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (1998-2005), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (2004-2021), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Seewiesen, (since 2022).