WELCOME As a Zoologist and a Behavioural Ecologist, I am broadly interested in the evolution of behavioural adaptations for survival and reproduction. My current research programme explores the role of the social environment in mediating the behavioural decisions of individual animals, with particular focus on mating strategies and tactics, social living and social association behaviour, and the consequences for selection. We use primarily, but not exclusively, fishes as model study systems.
BIOGRAPHY BRIEF Jean-Guy Godin is Chancellor’s Professor of Biology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is an active teacher, internationally-renowned researcher and leading authority on the behaviour of fishes; his field of research expertise is Behavioural Ecology. His research focuses on understanding the evolution of behavioural adaptations for survival and reproduction in animals, with particular interests in sexual selection and mating strategies and tactics and in social living, social partnerships and social learning. To date, over 125 peer-reviewed publications have resulted from his studies conducted in the field and laboratory in collaboration with undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and colleagues. His teaching and mentoring activities are mostly in the fields of animal behaviour, ecology and evolution. Godin received his B.Sc. Honours degree in Biology from St. Francis Xavier University (Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada) and his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver), followed by an NSERC Canada postdoctoral fellowship in Zoology at the University of Western Ontario. He has been a visiting research professor at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Sydney, the Université de Bourgogne (France), and the University of the West Indies (Trinidad). He is the recipient of several achievement awards and honours, including Fellow of The Linnean Society of London, Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, Fry Medal of the Canadian Society of Zoologists, Paul Paré Medal of Excellence, Visiting Research Fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Sydney, Canadian WHO’s WHO, and American Men and Women of Science.
Godin is a member of several learned societies, including the Canadian Society of Zoologists, Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, Animal Behavior Society, American Society of Naturalists, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and International Society for Behavioral Ecology. Over the course of his career, he has served in administrative, governance and leadership roles on university committees, senates and boards of governors, national and international advisory councils, and selection committees for honours, scholarships and fellowships, research grants, and research chairs. He is a current member of the Advisory Editorial Board of the journal Ethology, and past Editor of Animal Behaviour, Ethology and the International Journal of Ecology. Importantly, he served terms as Dean of the Faculty of Science at his current home institution, Carleton University, and his previous home institution, Mount Allison University, where he was also Professor of Biology. Through his extensive service to the academy and his discipline, he has acquired a wealth of experience in university student and faculty recruitment, programme and infrastructure development, strategic planning, leading and managing teams of people, mentoring students and colleagues, and in peer-assessment of institutions, academic programmes, graduate student theses, and research works nationally and internationally.