Prof. Dr. Ilona Grunwald has been Professor of Physiology and Head of the Institute of Physiology II at the Faculty of Medicine of the University Bonn since January 1, 2022. She is also the lead of the national multi-institution neuroscience network iBehave and the academic lead of University Bonn for the European university alliance NeurotechEU.
She obtained her diploma in biology at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, after which she attended the PhD graduate program at the renowned European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and obtained her PhD in neurobiology in 2002. Both during her studies and later as a postdoctoral researcher, Prof. Grunwald spent extended periods abroad, including at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) and in Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2017, she followed the call of the Technical University of Munich and accepted the professorship for Neuronal Control of Metabolism. Previously, she was an independent Max-Planck research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich.
The research group studies the neural circuits, neuronal processing and genes that control state-dependent sensations and behavior within diverse environments. To do this, the group combines neuroscience and physiology to understand how the brain and body communicate at the neural circuit, cellular and molecular levels using genetic animal models such as flies and mice. The goal of their research is to understand how neural circuit computations and genetic mechanisms allow humans and other animals to survive and thrive in their respective environments despite constantly changing extrinsic and intrinsic influences.
Prof. Grunwald has received several awards for her work, including the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, the Career Development Award of the Human Frontiers Science Program, the EMBO Young Investigator Award, and the Dr. Heinrich Baur Award. She has also been awarded an Emmy Noether Group Leader Research Fellowship and an ERC Starting Grant. Prof. Grunwald has been a Henriette Heart Scout of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since 2021.