Kurvers, Ralf

• Since 2019 External Principal Investigator Excellence Cluster, Science of Intelligence, Technical University, Berlin, Germany
• Since 2019 Senior Research Scientist, Centre for Adaptive Rationality, MPI for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
• Since 2015 Research scientist, Centre for Adaptive Rationality, MPI for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
• 2011-2014 Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Dept. Fish Biology and Ecology, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
• 2007-2011 PhD Resource Ecology Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
• 2006-2007 Research Associate, Behavioural Ecology of Sexual Signals Group, MPI for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany
• 2005-2006 Postgraduate study Philosophy, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• 2003-2005 MSc Ecology and Management, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
• 1999-2003 BSc Forest and Nature Conservation, Wageningen University, the Netherlands

Selected Publications

• Tump AN, Pleskac T & Kurvers RHJM (2020). Wise or mad crowds? The cognitive mechanisms underlying information cascades. Science Advances 6: eabb0266.
• Kurvers RHJM, Herzog SM, Hertwig R, Krause J, Moussaid M, Argenziano G, Zalaudek I, Carney PA & Wolf M (2019). How to detect high performing individuals and groups: decision similarity predicts accuracy. Science Advances 5: eaaw9011
• Marshall JAR, Kurvers RHJM, Krause J & Wolf M (2019) Quorums enable optimal pooling of independent judgments. eLife 8:e40368
• Snijders L, Kurvers RHJM, Krause S, Ramnarine IW & Krause J. Individual and population level drivers of consistent foraging success across environments (2018) Nature Ecology and Evolution 2: 610–1618
• Krause J, Herbert-Read JE, Seebacher F, Domenici P, Wilson ADM, Marras S, Svendsen MBS, Strömbom D, Steffensen JF, Krause S, Viblanc PE, Couillaud P, Bach P, Sabarros PS, Zaslansky P & Kurvers RHJM (2017) Injury-mediated decrease in locomotor performance increases predation risk in schooling fish. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 372: 1727
• Kurvers RHJM, Krause S, Viblanc PE, Herbert-Read JE, Zaslansky P, Domenici P, Marras S, Steffensen JF, Wilson ADM, Couillaud P & Krause J (2017) The Evolution of Lateralization in Group Hunting Sailfish. Current Biology 27: 521-526
• Kurvers RHJM, Herzog SM, Hertwig R, Krause J, Carney PA, Bogart A, Argenziano G, Zalaudek I & Wolf M (2016) Boosting medical diagnostics by pooling independent judgments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113: 8777-8782
• Kurvers RHJM, Krause J, Croft DP, Wilson ADM & Wolf M (2014) The evolutionary and ecological consequences of animal social networks. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 29: 326-335
• Kurvers RHJM, van Oers K, Nolet BA, Jonker RM, van Wieren SE, Prins HHT & Ydenberg RC (2010) Personality predicts the use of social information. Ecology Letters 13: 829-837

Grants and Awards

• 2021-2024: German Research Foundation (DFG) Grant. Individual, Collective and Environmental Drivers of Human Foraging Dynamics in the Wild. (€535.680)
  
• 2020-2023: Excellence Cluster, Science of Intelligence Research Grant. Weighing personal and social information in cooperative problem solving. link (€657.097)
• 2019-2022: Excellence Cluster, Science of Intelligence Research Grant. The Collective Dynamics Underlying Personal and Social Information Integration. link  (€313.476)
• 2016-2019: German Research Foundation (DFG) Grant. The Role of Individual Differences in Collective Behaviour. link. (€292.050)
• 2011-2014: NWO Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellowship. Who leads, who follows? Linking personality to collective decision making. link (€118.080)
• 2011: Second Prize PE&RC Best PhD Publication Award (€500)
• 2011: Second Prize NERN Publication Award. Award for the best scientific paper in ecology and evolution published by a PhD candidate (€500)
• 2011: Second Prize Centre for Ecosystems Award. Wageningen University (€100)
• 2006: Thomas More Foundation. Scholarship for postgraduate study philosophy (€5.000). Radboud University, Nijmegen, NL

Reviewing service

Papers (~130 unique manuscripts)

Nature | Nature Communications | PNAS | Current Biology | Trends in Ecology and Evolution | Ecology Letters | New England Journal of Medicine | The British Medical Journal | Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | Journal of the Royal Society Interface | Evolution and Human Behaviour | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | Journal of Cognition | Frontiers in Zoology | Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences | The Quarterly Review of Biology | Journal of Animal Ecology | Biology Letters | Journal of Evolutionary Biology | Animal Behaviour* | Behavioral Ecology | Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology | Oikos | Journal of Theoretical Biology | Journal of Fish Biology | Scientific Reports | Journal of Experimental Biology | Wildlife Biology | Journal of Mammalogy | Environmental Conservation | Science of the Total Environment | Environmental Pollution | Axios | Ethology | Ethology, Ecology & Evolution | Behaviour | Computers in Human Behavior | Journal of Intelligence | Journal of Behavioral Decision Making | Decision | Evolutionary Psychology | Current Zoology | Journal of Field Ornithology | Journal of Applied Ichthyology | Marine Environmental Research | PLoS ONE  | BMJ Open | BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making | Medical Decision Making | Journal of Patient Experience | Royal Society Open Science | PeerJ

* Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing. Animal Behaviour (2014)

Book (chapters)

Animal Social Networks (ed. by Krause, James, Franks & Croft) | The Social Life of Greylag Geese (ed. by Scheiber, Weiss, Hemetsberger, Kotrschal) | The Drive for Knowledge: the Science of Human Information Seeking (ed. by Eric Schulz).

Grants

National Science Foundation (NSF) | Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) | United States – Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) | Association for the study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) | Zukunftskolleg University of Konstanz