Michel Chapuisat - Associate Professor

I am broadly interested in the evolution of social behaviour, from genes to societies. My current research is directed towards understanding the genomic evolution underlying alternative social phenotypes in ants. For more information on my research interests and activities, please look here: Group Chapuisat

2015-present
Associate Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne

2017-2018
Visiting Associate Professor, Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia (sabbatical)

2007-2015
Maître d'Enseignement et de Recherche, Privat-Docent, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne

2001-2007
Maître Assistant et Chargé de Cours, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne

2000-2015
Privat-Docent, University of Lausanne

2000-2001
Senior assistant, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne

1998-1999
Postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Genetics, La Trobe University, with Prof. R. H. Crozier

1992-1998
Graduate Research Fellow, Museum of Zoology, Lausanne

1992-1997
Ph.D, University of Lausanne, with Prof. Daniel Cherix

I am in charge of two innovative interdisciplinary teaching programs.

First, I am organising the Biology and Society program for the Bachelor in Biology. I am particularly involved in a course and seminar on ethics and relationships between science and society.

Second, I am coordinating the (Sciences)2 program, which offers courses in life sciences and physical sciences to students in the humanities. In this context, I teach a course and organise practicals in evolutionary biology. This teaching is specially designed for students in the humanities, such as arts, social sciences, psychology or theology.

I also teach a course on social evolution to biology students in the third year of the Bachelor.

2008
Co-organiser of Biology08 the annual congress of organismal and integrative biology of the Swiss Zoological, Botanical and Mycological Societies, University of Lausanne

2006
Organiser of a symposium on The nature of human cooperation, University of Lausanne

2005-2009
Co-organiser of the interdisciplinary seminar series Déterminismes et liberté, University of Lausanne

2002 Organiser of a symposium on population genetics and genomics, Congress of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects, Sapporo

2001 Organiser of a symposium on conflicts in societies, Meeting of the European Sections of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects, Berlin.

2005-2008 Reviewing Editor of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology

2009-2012 Associate Editor, Proceedings of the Royal Society B

2005-2009 Secretary of the Swiss Zoological Society

Member of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, International Union for the Study of Social Insects, Société Académique Vaudoise, Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, Société Suisse de Zoologie, Society for the Study of Evolution.