My Curriculum Vitae

Born in Göttingen, Germany. He studied mathematics and biology at Free University of Berlin, with a PhD in genetics. After the PhD he became assistant professor in Berlin, spend some months at Washington University, St. Louis, Stanford University, Palo Alto, and University of California at Davis, before he moved to Aarhus University, Denmark, where he was associate and from 1997 full professor for evolutionary genetics. While employed in Aarhus he spent several sabbaticals at the University of New England Armidale, and La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, at the latter being twice distinguished fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study. In 1996 VL elected member of the Danish Royal Academy for Science and Letters and in 2017 he was awarded the order of Dannebrog from the Danish Royal House. He was one of the founding members of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, being its first executive Vice-President. He has been member of the European Research Council (ERC) and of many national research council committees, has been on the editorial board of many scientific journals, and in advisory committees for major research institutions, research programs and faculties. 



In 2001 he became head of Aarhus Centre for Environmental Stress Research (ACES) based on a centre grant from the Danish Research Council for Natural Sciences. He and his group studied adaptations to stressful environments combining approaches from evolutionary genetics, eco-physiology and molecular biology using Drosophila as a model organism.

Research areas:

• Temperature adpatations
• Stress resistance
• Ageing and inbreeding