Henrik Mouritsen's pages

My scientific Curriculum Vitae


Curriculum Vitae

Personal data:
Name: Henrik Østergaard Mouritsen
Address: Dept. of Biology, University of Oldenburg,
D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany.
Born 26 July 1971 in Aalborg, Denmark.
Civil status: Married.
Tel.: +49 (0)441 798 3081
Fax: +49 (0)441 798 3250
email: henrik.mouritsen@uni-oldenburg.de

Work:
2002-2006: Leader of my own Nachwuchsgruppe "Animal Navigation" financed by the VolkswagenStiftung
1999-2001: Visiting scientist at Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Canada.
1998: Research assistant at Centre for Sound Communication at Odense University Sept-Dec financed by the Danish National Research Foundation.

Education:
1998: Awarded a Ph.D. on 'Compasses and orientational strategies of night migrating passerines'
1996: Master of science (Cand. Scient.) in Biology and Chemistry from Odense University.
1994: Given a four years Ph.D. grant from Odense University.
1990: Matriculated Odense University.
1990: Graduated from Støvring Gymnasium (mathematical-chemical high-school).
A photo of me
A photo of me taken in the field July 2000.

Papers:
1998: Mouritsen, H. ‘Redstarts, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, can orient in a true-zero magnetic field’. Animal Behaviour 55, 1311-1324.
1998: Mouritsen, H. ‘Modelling migration: the clock-and-compass model can explain the distribution of ringing recoveries’. Animal Behaviour 56, 899-907.
1998: Mouritsen, H. & Larsen, O.N. ‘Migrating young Pied Flycatchers do not compensate for geographical displacements’. Journal of Experimental Biology 201, 2927-2934.
2000: Mouritsen, H. & Mouritsen, O. "A mathematical expectation model for bird navigation based on the clock-and-compass strategy". Journal of Theoretical Biology 60, 283-291..
2000: Mouritsen, H. 'Ringing recoveries contain hidden information about orientation mechanisms.' Ardea 89: 31-42.
2000: Mouritsen, H. 'Yes, the clock-and-compass strategy can explain the distribution of ringing recoveries - reply to Thorup et al.' Animal Behaviour 60, F9-F14.
2001: Mouritsen, H. & Larsen, O.N. 'Migrating songbirds tested in computer controlled Emlen funnels use stellar cues for a time-independent compass' Journal of Experimental Biology 204, 3855-3865.
This paper was featured in "The best of Journal of Experimental Biology" and written up in New Scientist. It also reached several major news media around the world including BBC and The Independent.
2002: Mouritsen, H. & Frost, B.J. "Virtual migration in tethered flying monarch butterflies reveals orientation mechanisms." PNAS 99, 10162-10166.
This paper was written up in Science's news section, in New Scientist, and in many major news media around the world including CNN, CBC, Reuther's, Ritzau, The Independent, Bild der Wissenschaft and Washington Post.
2003: Andersson, D.J., Huyvaert, K.P., Wood, D.R., Gillikin, C.L., Frost, B.J. & Mouritsen, H. "At-sea movements of Waved Albatrosses and the Galapagos Marine Reserve." Biological Conservation, 110, 367-373.
2003: Mouritsen, H., Huyvaert, K.P., Frost, B.J. & Andersson, D.J. Wawed Albatrosses can navigate with strong magnets attached to their head." Journal of Experimental Biology, provisional acceptance.

Reviews:
1998: Mouritsen, H. ‘How do young night migrating passerines use their compasses for orientation during migration?’. Proceedings of the 22nd International Ornithological Congress pp. 934-955.
2000: Mouritsen, H. "Navigation in birds and other animals". Journal of Image and Vision Computing 19: 713-731.
2003: Mouritsen, H. "Spatiotemporal orientation strategies of long-distance migrants". In: Avian Migration (Eds: Berthold, Gwinner & Sonnenschein), Springer Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 493-513.

Conferences, international research stays etc.:
2003: Gave invited seminar on "Celestial orientation in birds and butterflies" at University of Salt Lake City, USA.
2003: Gave talk at Department of Engineering at University of Illinois, USA.
2003: Gave invited Colloquia talk the Zoological Institute at University of Zürich, Switzerland.
2002: Gave invited Colloquia talk: "Virtual migration in tethered flying monarch butterflies reveals their orientation mechanisms" at Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltenphysiologie, Seewiesen, Germany on 10 October.
2002: Chaired the the oral session on migration and gave oral presentation "How do night migrating passerines use the stars for navigation?" at the 22nd International Ornithological Conference in China.
2001: Gave invited talk on Spatiotemporal orientation strategies of long-distance migrants at the Vogelwarte Radolfzell 100 year aniversary conference.
2000: Presented poster at the ESF Workshop on Optimal Migration in Wilhelmshafen, Germany.
2000: Gave invited seminars at Wake Forest University and Duke University, North Carolina, USA.
2000: Field research on Galapagos in collaboration with Dr. Dave Anderson, Wake Forest University, USA.
2000: Field research in New Zealand in collaboration with Dr. Henrik Moller, Otago University, New Zealand.
1999: Gave invited symposium talk on 'Ringing recoveries can answer questions not only about 'Where?' and 'When?' but also about 'How?'' at the 'Bird Ringing 100 Years'-conference on Helgoland, Germany.
1999: Gave invited plenary talk on "Navigation in birds and other animals", at the 1999 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in Colorado, USA.
1999: Gave talk on "The orientation programmes of night migrating passerines", at University of Otago, New Zealand.
1999: Gave talk on "The orientation programmes of night migrating passerines", at Department of Biology and at Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Canada.
1998: Talks on "How migratory birds find their way", at the universities of Odense, Aarhus, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
1998: Gave talk on the orientation programmes of night migrating passerines as an invited symposium speaker at the 22nd International Ornithological Conference in South Africa.
1998: Gave talk on the orientation programmes of night migrating passerines at RWTH, Aachen, Germany.
1997: Gave talk on ‘magnetic-stellar cue-conflict experiments with night migrating passerines’ and visited the lab of Roswitha and Wolfgang Wiltschko at Johan Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.
1997: Presented poster on mathematical modelling of migration at the Optimal migration conference at Lund University.
1997: Presenting poster at the 1997 RIN (Royal Institute of Navigation) conference on Animal Orientation and Navigation.
1996: Participation in a course/symposium on Sensory Ecology at Lund University, Sweden.
1996: Field research in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Afik, Haifa University, Israel.
1995: Research stay at Prof. E. Gwinner's lab, Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltenphysiologie, Andechs, Germany (nine days).
1995: ASAB Winter-meeting in London.

Early research achievements:
1986-1989: Draw up the report: ‘The Birdlife of Gravlev Ådal’ The work won me the first price of 20,000 dkr in Jyllandsposten’s research competition for young scientists and inventors.
1992: Participation in a scientific expedition to the rain forests of the Sierra Madre Mountains of Luzon, The Philippines (five month). The expedition was supported by Birdlife International and the World Bank. The aim of the expedition was to pinpoint the most important rainforest areas for conservation of biodiversity in the Phillipines.
1993-1994: Draw up the report: ‘The effect of daily activity changes on population density estimates of rain forest birds derived from transect counts.’ on basis of the results from the above mentioned expedition. The work won me the first price of 15,000 dkr in Jyllandsposten’s research competition for young scientists and inventors and a first price of 5,000 ECU in the 5th EU Competition for Young Scientists. Also I won a travel award as EU’s official representative at the 45th International Science and Engineering Fair in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

Media publicity related to my previous research achievements
8 minutes live interview on BBC World TV 19:00 News and feature on CBC countrywide news.
My PNAS paper was featured in Science's News section.
Article about my paper in JEB 2001 was written up in the "New Scientist" 9 Feb 2002 issue and another article about my PNAS 2002 paper appeared in the 13 July 2002 issue.
5 minutes live interview on the news on an American television station.
20 minutes programme about my research on local Danish television: TV Nord.
Short news spots on CNN, CBC (Canadian TV), national Danish television, both DR's "TV-avisen", TV2's "Nyhederne".
5 minutes radio interview on BBC World Service in their science news section.
Full page articles in current science sections of the "The Independent", "Washington Post" and three major Danish newspapers: "Politiken", "Jyllandsposten" and "Berlingske Tidende".
Several 1-2 page articles in "Ingenøren" and "Jyllandsposten" special issues on research by young scientists.
Smaller news articles in "Der Spiegel", "Berliner Zeitung", "The Independent", "The New York Times" and many others.
Several radio interviews on local and national Danish and German radio and on BBC Scotland.

Referee services for
Science.
Animal Behaviour.
Journal of Experimental Biology.
Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology.
Journal for Ornithology.
Journal of Avian Biology.

Teaching experience:
1995-1998: Lectures and tutorials in the Behaviour course of Odense University (graduate and undergraduate students).
1994-1998: Tutorials in the Population Biology course of Odense University (undergraduate students).
1989-1995: Lectures at Støvring folk high school in The nature of Himmerland.
1989-1990: Private teacher in mathematics (high school students).

Other qualifications:
Active field ornithologist over the last 15 years and holder of banding license no. A-488 from the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen (have banded approximately 6,000 birds).
Master programming in TurboPascal.
Very large travel experience.
Work as safari guide in Kenya and Tanzania.
Nature photographer.

Henrik Mouritsen
henrik.mouritsen@uni-oldenburg.de

Copyright © 1996-2002 Henrik Mouritsen
Revised 24 September 2002