Elham Nourani

Elham Nourani is a Researcher in the Department of Migration at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany. Her work focuses on understanding how animals interact with environmental conditions during movement, particularly exploring optimal migration strategies shaped by ontogeny, macroecology, and global change. She holds a PhD in Environmental Science from Nagasaki University (Japan), with postdoctoral positions at the Max Planck Institute and a DAAD PRIME fellowship across institutions in Germany and the UK. Her research integrates atmospheric data with ecological principles to study avian migration, wind utilization, and climate impacts.

Key research areas include energy landscapes in flight, developmental influences on migration, and seabird adaptations to extreme weather. She has contributed to projects like CASCB and published extensively on topics such as gravity wave utilization by eagles, ontogenetic flight proficiency, and wind niche modeling for seabirds. Her work bridges theoretical ecology with applied conservation, emphasizing the importance of non-English scientific literature in global biodiversity efforts.

Elham has collaborated internationally, including with the Tarlan Ornithological Society in Iran, and her interdisciplinary approach spans migration routes, climate change projections, and morphological adaptations in birds. Her research addresses challenges in ecological barriers, den site dynamics, and conservation prioritization through spatial modeling and field observations.