Alexandre Courtiol

Gudrun Wibbelt

Gudrun is a veterinary pathologist specialized on wildlife and zoo animals. Her main interest are infectious diseases and small mammals. She is also the IZW's animal welfare officer and advises IZW scientists on their animal experiment applications and facilitates their communication with governmental authorities.

Katja Pohle et al.

An Nguyen

Liam Bailey

Liam is a data scientist and ecologist focussed on using data science skills for conservation outcomes. He recently completed a DFG Eigene Stelle post-doc at the IZW and will be soon starting as a geospatial analyst with WWF Germany. Liam has a particular fondness for data visualisation (link: https://liamdbailey.com/dataviz) and wants to help others communicate their science better through visualisation.

Moritz Wenzler-Meya

Coming soon

Tobias Kürschner

Coming soon

Diogo Guerra

Diogo Guerra is a medical illustrator with an atypical background. He completed a Masters in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Lisbon (DVM), and a doktorarbeit in Veterinary Parasitology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland (dr med vet). He currently works as a freelance medical illustrator and dataviz consultant, after taking several courses in scientific illustration, painting and data visualization. He was part of the graphic department of the VetSuisse Faculty in Zurich (VETCOM) between 2014–2015, and worked as a medical illustrator at the medical communications agency Medicalwriters.com between 2018–2022. His medical illustration portfolio combines his scientific background with the passion to visualize complex ideas, especially at the intersection of Human and Animal Medicines and Wildlife Infectious Diseases.. He also teaches workshops on visual science communication to doctors and researchers. Portfolio at www.diogoguerra.com.

Ivona Kafedjiska

Ivona did her bachelor studies in Physics at Jacobs University Bremen. After that, she went to Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg where she did two master studies, one in Physics and the other one in Renewable Energy Engineering and Management. In 2018, she moved to Berlin for her PhD at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin for Materials and Energy Research (HZB). She is a passionate advocate for diversity, equality and mental health in academia - all of which were her main motivators to become a spokesperson of the Helmholtz Juniors and a board member of N2 (the Network of Networks) in 2021. Since January, 2023 Ivona is working as a PV research-strategy and policy consultant at HZB.

Susanne Auls

Susanne has worked as a Medical Technologist in research labs for 30 years now. She enjoys the creative and exciting environment of the scientific workplace, but at the same time perceives the toxic structures of it that lead to inequality and abuse of power. Changing this and creating a work environment that instead promotes diversity, equality and inclusion, and where everyone can work with joy and ease - this is her motivation for her work as Chair of the IZW's Workers' Council. She is convinced that the existing structures must change fundamentally in order to achieve this. That is why she is now also actively involved outside the IZW at the level of the Leibniz Association and beyond.

Until this long-term goal is achieved, she participates in alleviating the problems that the current system creates. These include conflicts and mental health issues. To address this more effectively, she has spent the last 3 years training to become a certified Mediator and Coach.

Caroline Hickman

Rohit Chakravarty and Saba Mottaghinia

Rohit: I am a postdoc at the Nature Conservation Foundation, India engaged in bat research and conservation. Over the past decade, I have studied bats in various parts of India, including the Himalayas for my PhD at the Leibniz-IZW (2018-2023). I am also a co-author of the book, 'The Naturalist's Guide to the Mammals of India'.

Saba: I am a constantly evolving evolutionary virologist currently transposed into CIRI (Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie) Lyon. My postdoctoral research, funded by the French ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche), focuses on deciphering evolutionary and functional implications of bat Protein Kinase R (PKR) gene duplication. I obtained my doctoral degree at the Freie Universität Berlin for my research at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW). My DFG-funded project focused on endogenous retroviruses and specifically Koala retrovirus (KoRV). I studied evolutionary biology at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn and completed my master thesis at the Virology Institute Universitätsklinikum Bonn and Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, working on arboviruses. I obtained my BSc. degree from Juniata College in the USA. I lived in Iran, Switzerland, USA, Germany and France and have more than seven years of non-academic job experience mainly in marketing/sales in Evonik Industries but my passion stays within academia, especially wildlife diseases and transposable elements.

Miriam Brandt and Uli Rockenbauch

Julie Louvrier

From 2015 until 2018 I worked on developping new statistical tools to assess the dynamic spatial distribution of large carnivores in Europe. In 2019 I receievd a first fellowship from the DAAD to pursue postdoctoral research at the Leibniz-IZW in Berlin. During this year I studied the mesocarnivore community of Berlin and their spatio-temporal requirements before and during the SARS-Cov2 lockdown. In 2020 I received a second fellowship from the IPODI at TU Berlin to better study the recolonization of wolves in Germany and assess the future of their population given different conservation scenarios. I have a particular interest in wildlife conservation and I wish to provide scientific foundations to help finding solutions for society in the field of ecology and nature conservation.

Sinah Drenske

Bettina Wachter

Jan Zwilling and Steven Seet

Carolin Scholz

Susana Soares

Susana Soares is a veterinarian that completed her Integrated Masters in Veterinary Medicine (DVM + MSc) at the University of Lisboa, Portugal and a pos-graduation in Exotics Medicine and Surgery at the University Lusófona in Lisboa. She has been practising medicine in several sectors - like small animal clinics, mixed practices, exotics consultations, animal shelters, street medicine, wildlife rescue centers and zoos -  which allowed her to experience on first hand different environments, different conditions to practice medicine and to communicate. She has also participated in conservation projects like the LIFE-Nature Project ‘Enhancing Habitat for the Iberian Lynx and Black Vulture in the Southeast of Portugal’ and Conservation Optimism to name a few. And during the last COVID-19 pandemic, she was part of the vet task force to track and break transmission chains. Currently she is pursuing her PhD at the Leibniz-IZW under the topic of "Long term effects of gastrointestinal parasitism and immunosenescence in wild spotted hyenas".

Daniel Lewanzik

Cara Gallagher

Kathleen Röllig