Research output per year
Research output per year
Universitetsparken 15, 2100 København Ø
Denmark
Research activity per year
I am interested in the biology of cooperation and conflict to understand adaptive design by natural selection, particularly when social interactions make it ambiguous what optimal design might be. An explicit “gene’s-eye” focus on the social insects has allowed me to unravel deep-seated potential conflicts between the sexes, between castes, and between hosts and mutualistic symbionts, and to address questions about the origins of major evolutionary transitions in organizational complexity. I have done fieldwork on fungus-growing ants for 25 years, hosted by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and initiated other field-based research programs on a variety of social insects and their mutualists or parasites in Denmark, Europe, Africa and SE Asia – this research normally uses molecular methods to confront questions emanating from kin-selection theory and natural history. In recent years, I also obtained access to Danish public health data to test whether poorly understood aspects of human health and disease can be illuminated by evolutionary conflict hypotheses.
My research is or has been supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council, the Danish National Research Foundation - Centre for Social Evolution, the Carlsberg Foundation and the European Commission (advanced ERC grant, two research-training networks, participation in several thematic networks, and more than 20 individual Marie Curie fellowships).
Curriculum vitae Jacobus J. Boomsma
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Education |
MSc Biology (1976); PhD (1982): Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam |
Appointments |
Director Centre for Social Evolution (2005 - present); Professor, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen (1999 - present); Associate Professor, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Aarhus (1990 - 1999); Independent N.W.O. Research Fellow, University of Utrecht (1985-1990); Temporary Lecturer, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (1982-1985) |
Visiting/sabattical Fellowships |
Oxford University, UK (1986-1987); Cornell University (1989); Utrecht University (1998); Universities of Würzburg and Regensburg (in total 5 months in 2002-2004); Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (in total more than a year of fieldwork since 1993); Oxford University (six months in 2016); Focus-group convener and Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin (Wissenschaftkolleg zu Berlin): September 2018-July 2019 |
Research Interests |
Social Evolution, Conflict/Cooperation, Mating systems, Coevolution, Conservation, Genomics, Evolutionary Medicine |
Awards and Honors |
C.&C. Huygens Excellence Fellowship (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (1985-1990); Elected Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (1998); Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, 2001; Research Associate of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (2007-2018); Honorary Doctorate, University of Helsinki (2010); Knighthood, Royal Danish Order of Dannebrog (2015); Newton Abraham visiting Professorship, University of Oxford (2016); Quadrennial Hamilton Award for outstanding lifetime achievement by the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (2018); Sabbatical Fellowship Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (academic year 2018-2019) |
Editorial Board Memberships |
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (1991-2002); Journal of Evolutionary Biology (1992-1994); Insectes Sociaux (1998-2006); Journal of Insect Conservation (1998-2006); Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata (1999-2000); Proceedings of The Royal Society Series B (2003-2008); Myrmecological News (2004-present); BioMed Central Evolutionary Biology (2005-present); Insect Conservation and Diversity (2007-2012); Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health (2012 - present) |
Academic Service (selection) |
Member of the Council of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (1997-2001); Vice President and Chair of the 2001 John Maynard Smith Prize Committee (1999-2001); Non-European Vice President of the Society for the Study of Evolution and member of the 2003 Dobzhansky Prize Committee (2003); President and quadrennial World Congress Organizer (2006-2010) of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI); Danish Representative in the Publication Board of the Nordic Society Oikos (2006 – 2016); ERC St8 Panel Member (2014); ERC AdG Panel 8 Chair (2016, 2018); (co)-organizer of >15 symposia and workshops |
Leadership |
Coordinator of two EU-Research-training Networks (1996 - 2001 and 2001 - 2004); Host of more than 20 Individual EU Marie Curie Fellows; Director Centre for Social Evolution and Symbiosis (2002-2005: Danish National Science Research Council); Director Centre for Social Evolution (2005 - present: Danish National Research Foundation 2005-2015); Advanced ERC grant (2013 - 2018) |
Publications |
>300 listed in Google Scholar; >16000 citations; h-index 71; i10 = 247 Of these 5 in Nature, 7 in Science, 10 in PNAS, 8 in Current Biology, 4 in Nature Communications, and 2 in Nature Ecology and Evolution (including N&V, matters arising, dispatch, Q&A, retrospective) |
Review/Assessments |
Hundreds of reviews for >60 international journals (including Nature, Science, PNAS, Current Biology, PLoS) and many assessments for grant-giving agencies, tenure/ promotion reviews, prize nominations, etc; Member and Chair of various EU Marie Curie panels in Life Sciences and Environment since FP4; Review Panel Member Evolutionary Biology Program of the Volkswagen Foundation (2008-2012); Member of the Spinoza Prize Committee, N.W.O., The Netherlands (2011-2013); Panel member Research Assessment Exercise University of Oulu (2013); Member of the joint NWO - KNAW evaluation committee for 22 NWO-KNAW Research Institutes for fundamental science in the Netherlands (2018-2019); Member or Chair of several congress program committees; >25 external PhD/DSc evaluations in ten countries |
Invited talks |
>60 invited Departmental seminars at >40 Institutions; >30 keynote/plenary addresses; > 70 invited symposium talks and public dissemination lectures |
Review/Assessment/Organization of teaching Curricula |
Member of Evaluation panels for national (Netherlands 1996-7) and University (Helsinki, 2002) biology curricula. Member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Assembly of PhD Schools in Functional Ecology in the Netherlands (1998-2006); Director of Science and Chairman of the Scientific Committee of ISOBIS (International Ph.D. School of Biodiversity Sciences in Denmark) (2002-2007). |
Teaching/Supervision |
Undergraduate and graduate courses in Evolution, Ecology, Evolutionary Medicine and Conservation; > 30 Postdocs; >25 PhD students; >50 MSc students last updated September 2019 |
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Jacobus Jan Boomsma (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution
Howe, J. (Creator), Schiøtt, M. (Creator), Li, Q. (Creator), Wang, Z. (Creator), Zhang, G. (Creator) & Boomsma, K. (Creator), Zenodo, 2020
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8gtht76n0, https://zenodo.org/record/4086567
Dataset
Howe, J. (Creator), Schiøtt, M. (Creator), Li, Q. (Creator), Wang, Z. (Creator), Zhang, G. (Creator) & Boomsma, K. (Creator), Dryad, 2020
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8gtht76n0, https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.8gtht76n0
Dataset