“It is with great pleasure and pride that I may inform you that Theunis Piersma (professor Global Flyway Ecology in the Animal Ecology Department, University of Groningen) has been awarded the NWO Spinoza Prize 2014. This was announced today by NWO.This prize is the highest award in Dutch science. NWO awards the NWO Spinoza Prize each year to three or four researchers working in the Netherlands who according to international standards belong to the absolute top of science. The NWO Spinoza laureates do outstanding, pioneering research and they are a source of inspiration for younger researchers. Professor Piersma will receive a sum of 2.5 million euro to freely spend on his research.”
“Professor Piersma is a world leading ecologist whose research integrates physiological ecology, behavioural ecology as well as population dynamics. He is a world-class empirical researcher on the functioning of animals, in particular migratory birds, in natural environments, with the ultimate aim to explain, at various spatial and temporal scales, their distribution and abundance. His research provides the findings necessary for sound, evidence-based, advice in problems of nature conservation and wildlife management, including predictions of the ecological effects of global change. At the same time his research provides training opportunities for young ecologists, especially for those aiming to work in habitats typical of The Netherlands such as intertidal flats (Wadden Sea, and intertidal mudflats elsewhere in the world) or grasslands (especially the meadows of the northern Netherlands). He intensively interacts with nature conservation organizations, such as Natuurmonumenten, WWF, Vogelbescherming and Waddenvereniging, which recently culminated in his endowed chair in Global Flyway Ecology.”
Prof. Han Olff – director of the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies (CEES)
