Rate My Professor Damien Farine

Damien Farine is an Associate Professor in the Division of Ecology and Evolution within the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University, where he leads the Farine Group in social evolutionary ecology. He concurrently holds positions as Eccellenza Professor at the University of Zurich and Affiliated Scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. As a behavioural and movement ecologist, Farine's research investigates how individuals navigate their social landscapes and how social dynamics influence the interplay between physiology and ecological environments. His approach integrates advanced analytical methods and data collection technologies to bridge individual-level interactions with emergent population-level patterns and processes, applied across long-term studies in both captive and wild vertebrate systems, such as vulturine guineafowl and songbirds.

Farine graduated with degrees in Microelectronic Engineering and Computer Science before pursuing his DPhil at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, University of Oxford, where his thesis explored individual decision-making in social structure and collective behaviour. His career progressed through a postdoctoral position at the University of Oxford, a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute fellowship based at the University of California Davis, Lecturer at the University of Konstanz, and Principal Investigator roles at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour. Notable achievements include the 2018 Christopher Barnhard Award for Outstanding Contributions by a New Investigator from the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, the 2019 ERC Starting Grant for The Ecology of Collective Behaviour, recognition as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher from 2019 to 2023, and the 2025 SwissCham Award for Research Excellence. Key publications encompass 'Constructing, conducting and interpreting animal social network analysis' (Farine & Whitehead, 2015, Journal of Animal Ecology), 'Experimentally induced innovations lead to persistent culture via conformity in wild birds' (Aplin et al., 2015, Nature), 'Shared decision-making drives collective movement in wild baboons' (Strandburg-Peshkin et al., 2015, Science), 'Animal social network inference and permutations for ecologists in R using asnipe' (Farine, 2013, Methods in Ecology and Evolution), and 'Social networks predict patch discovery in a wild population of songbirds' (Aplin et al., 2012, Proceedings of the Royal Society B). Farine's contributions have advanced methodologies in animal social network analysis and the understanding of collective behaviour.