Structure and organization
Each of the institute's eight departments is led by a director. The institute is managed by the board of directors. Every three years, the position of the institute's managing director changes from one director to the next.
The institute has two locations in Martinsried near Munich and Seewiesen near Starnberg. The Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (MPI-BI) has round about 500 members of staff, coming from over 50 nations. Due to the internationality, the language in the labs, in seminars and other meetings is English.
Management
Managing Director: Prof. Dr. Manfred Gahr
Deputy Managing Director: Prof. Dr. Tobias Bonhoeffer
Assistant to the Managing Director: Dr. Amalia Braun
Head of Administration: Sonja Strobel
Scientific Members, Directors
Prof. Dr. Herwig Baier, Department Genes - Circuits - Behavior
Dr. Maude Baldwin, Department Evolution of Sensory and Physiological Systems
Prof. Dr. Tobias Bonhoeffer, Department Synapses - Circuits - Plasticity
Prof. Dr. Alexander Borst, Department Circuits - Computation - Models
Prof. Dr. Winfried Denk, Department Electrons - Photons - Neurons
Prof. Dr. Manfred Gahr, Department of Behavioral Neurobiology
Prof Dr. Bart Kempenaers, Department of Ornithology (formerly Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, renamed in July 2023)
Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Klein, Department Molecules - Signaling - Development
Research Groups
Dr. Henrik Brumm, Research Group Communication and Social Behavior
Dr. Lisa Fenk, Lise Meitner Research Group Active Sensing
Dr. Lorenz Fenk, Max Planck Research Group Neural Dynamics and Evolution
Dr. Oliver Griesbeck, Research Group Tools for Bio-Imaging
Dr. Angelika Harbauer, Max Planck Research Group Neurometabolism
Dr. Michaela Hau, Research Group Evolutionary Physiology
Dr. Susanne Hoffmann, Research Group Neural Mechanisms of Natural Behavior
Dr. Clemens Kuepper, Max Planck Research Group Behavioral Genetics and Evolutionary Ecology
Dr. Christian Mayer, Max Planck Research Group Neurogenomics
Dr. Pablo Oteiza, Research Group Flow Sensing
Dr. Nils Rattenborg, Research Group Avian Sleep
Dr. Daniela Vallentin, Lise Meitner Research Group Neural Circuits for Vocal Communication
Groups
Dr. Auguste von Bayern, Group Comparative Cognition
Max Planck Fellows
Prof. Dr. Benedikt Grothe, Max Planck Fellow Group Circuits of Spatial Hearing
Prof. Dr. Jochen Wolf, Max Planck Fellow Group Microevolution and Biodiversity
Emeritus Scientific Members
Prof. Dr. Berthold, Until 2004 director of the department Bird Migration
Prof. Dr. Bert Sakmann, Director at the MPI for Medical Research, Emeritus Group Cortical Column in silico at the institute since 2008
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Wekerle, Director until 2011. Department Neuroimmunology
External Scientific Members
Prof. Dr. Yves-Alain Barde, Cardiff School of Biosciences, UK
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Hohlfeld, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Germany
Lord John Krebs, Oxford University, UK
Prof. Dr. Edvard Moser, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for Neural Computation, Norway
Associated Max Planck Center
Max Planck–University of Cape Town Centre for Behaviour and Coevolution