I obtained my PhD at the University of Groningen (NL) with a study on the development of sexual preferences in birds. Behavioural development (imprinting, song learning) and vocal communication in birds were the topics of two subsequent postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Cambridge (UK), a brief appointment at Utrecht University (NL) and of my Senior Research Fellowship of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, again at Groningen University. Thereafter I moved to Leiden to take up the chair in Animal Behaviour (Ethology). I serve/served on the editorial board of several journals and am/was council member of various national and international scientific organizations. At Leiden University I served as Scientific Director of the Institute of Biology and as Director of Education in Biology. I am also affiliated with the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition

My core research is on animal communication and cognition. I am particularly interested in the cognitive mechanisms involved in the learning and processing of vocal and visual signals in species ranging from birds and fish to humans. This includes comparative research on auditory perception and auditory pattern learning in animals (in particular birds) and humans. Many projects involve collaboration with linguists, psychologists and others and are at the interface of biology, cognitive science, psychology and linguistics. They aim at providing insights in the biological origins and mechanisms of human linguistic rule learning, language development, speech perception, musicality and the neural bases of these processes. Most studies are supported by external funding from various sources.