Dr Olav Rueppell

Dr. Olav Rueppell received his undergraduate and doctorate degrees from the Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg working on social evolution in ants. After a postdoc at the University of California Davis that introduced him to the wonderful world of honey bees, he set up a diverse and productive research group at the University of North Carolina Greensboro that steadily grew for the past 17 years. Now, he is excited to continue that legacy with a fresh start at the University of Alberta to study honey bee biology and health and related topics.

His overall goal is to understand the causes and consequences of social evolution across different levels of biological organization, using the honey bee as primary model. Specific areas of interest are life-history and aging, behavior, and genome architecture. He also seeks to identify sustainable solutions to improve honey bee health, focusing on viruses, the ecto-parasitic Varroa mite and hygienic behavior, and general stress responses in honey bees.