Hans Metz

Biography

Hans Metz has been associated with IIASA’s Evolution and Ecology Program since its start in 1996, initially as scientific leader and since January 2002 as Senior Advisor. In 2010 he retired as Professor of Mathematical Biology at the Leiden Institute of Biology (IBL) where he was leader of the Theoretical Biology section until 2006. Professor Metz' research interests have ranged from the construction of state space models from data on animal behavior (1968-1981), through the dynamics of physiologically structured populations, where populations are conceived as frequency distributions over spaces of physiological states (1980-1992, with a trickle of activity going on until the present day), to adaptive dynamics (since 1990), with recently some population genetics and Evo-Devo also creeping in for perspective. His main research interest remains the mathematical development of adaptive dynamics as a class of stochastic dynamical systems abstracting the process of long-term evolutionary change in the parameters characterizing individual behavior as a result of (i) chance mutations which slightly alter the parameter vector of single individuals, and (ii) the population dynamics generated by their behavior.

Last update: 28 MAR 2011