Change of leadership at the Max Planck Institute in Plön

June 25, 2021

On 1 July, Paul Rainey will become the new Managing Director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. He succeeds Diethard Tautz, who remains Deputy Managing Director. The change comes as part of the rotation principle in place at the Institute, whereby each of the three directors (Paul Rainey, Diethard Tautz and Arne Traulsen) is appointed in turn as Managing Director for three years each.

Paul Rainey is head of the Department of Microbial Population Biology, which uses microbes as model organisms to understand processes of evolution. Paul comes from New Zealand and was appointed director at the Max Planck Institute in Plön in 2017, following previous posts at the University of Oxford, the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, and École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris. This is the first time he holds the position of Managing Director. He will thus represent the Institute both internally and externally.

On behalf of the entire institute, the incoming Managing Director extends his sincere thanks to Diethard Tautz for his numerous invaluable contributions to the institute, especially his role overseeing initiation of the Institute's new building and his sage management during the corona pandemic. Diethard Tautz will continue to head the Department of Evolutionary Genetics for another two years before retiring in 2023.