Paul Schmid-Hempel Professor of Integrative Biology Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-Zurich Paul Schmid-Hempel studied biology (zoology and ecology) at the University of Zurich, where he graduated with a PhD on the ecology and evolution of desert ants under the supervision of Rüdiger Wehner. After being a post-doctoral fellow with John Krebs (Baron Krebs of Wytham) at Oxford University, he first became an Assistant with Stephen C. Stearns at the University of Basel, and then a Swiss National Science Foundation Research Professor. In 1988 he was awarded the Latsis Prize of the Swiss SNF. He was appointed Professor of Experimental Ecology at ETH Zurich in 1991. He served as Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences at ETH, President of the Swiss Zoological Society, board member of the Roche Research Foundation, as a Counsellor and Vice-President of ESEB, and is member of the scientific board of the Gulbenkian Institute. Paul Schmid-Hempel had been a guest professor at SFU Vancouver, a Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe Melbourne, and is a Adjunct Professor at UWA Perth. He is also a member of the German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, and a Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin. His research work focuses on the ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactions, the maintenance of genetic diversity, recombination, social systems, immune defence strategies, ecological immunology. He has received numerous research grants, including an ERC-Advanced grant, and authored some 250 research papers and several books.