Damian Elias

Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management

UC Berkeley

Damian O. Elias is an Associate Professor in the Departmental of Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. Elias’ research focuses on the mechanisms that guide animal behavior and how these mechanisms relate to behavioral adaptation and evolution. Elias received his PhD in 2005 from Cornell University in Neurobiology and Behavior. His work covers a variety of topics (communication, mate choice, species diversification) across animal systems (ranging from spiders to birds) and scales (ranging from physics to phylogenetics). By studying the diversity of animal behavior through multiple lenses, Elias’ work aims to explore both biological principles and how bias influences the study and interpretation of animal behavior. Elias is a California Academy of Sciences Fellow and Affiliated Faculty in the Essig Museum of Entomology at UC Berkeley.