Dr. Maurijn van der Zee is an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is specialized in “evo-devo” (evolutionary developmental biology), a field of research aiming to find the genetic changes in development that lead to new animal forms in evolution. Van der Zee obtained his PhD in Cologne (Germany) in 2006, worked in Heraklion (Greece), and did postdoctoral research in Paris (France). He was elected best teacher of the Science Faculty by Leiden University students in 2012.