Justyna Wolinska

Justyna Wolinska is a Professor of Aquatic Evolutionary Ecology at the Freie Universität Berlin and a Research Group Leader at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB Berlin). She holds a joint appointment in the Institute of Biology and leads the Department of Evolutionary and Integrative Ecology (Dept. 5). Her research focuses on evolutionary and ecological processes mediated by parasitism in aquatic ecosystems, particularly host-parasite coevolution in the context of global environmental change.

Wolinska earned her PhD in Evolutionary Ecology from Eawag/ETH Zurich (2006) and her Habilitation from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2012). She has held academic roles including Assistant Professor at LMU Munich (2008–2014) and Research Group Leader at IGB Berlin (since 2014). Her work bridges evolutionary biology, ecology, and environmental science, with a focus on Daphnia (water fleas) as model organisms.

Her research interests include the interface between host-parasite coevolution and ecological processes, impacts of environmental stressors (e.g., microplastics, climate change), and the role of parasites in shaping host diversity. She has led over 15 grants, including German-Israeli collaborations on parasite virulence and European projects on host-parasite interactions in hybridizing Daphnia.

Wolinska has supervised numerous students and hosted postdocs through programs like the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and DAAD. She is an editorial board member of Journal of Evolutionary Biology and BMC Evolutionary Biology, and has reviewed for leading journals like Ecology and Proceedings of the Royal Society B.