Professor in Evolutionary Ecology at Wageningen University (NL), Louise Vet is also director of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW).  Her research deals with the interactions (at the food chain level) among plants, herbivore insects and their natural enemies. Throughout her career, this ecologist has been interested in the evolution of the foraging behaviour and life history of parasitic insects. Chemical ecology is used to understand when and why parasitoids (insects that lay their eggs in other insect) use plant odours to locate their host. Neurobiological research is useful for studying information processing (learning and memory) of these plant odours by the parasitoids. Genomics is increasingly used, for example to identify the genes that are involved in this odour learning process.