Ilona Grunwald Kadow earned her doctorate from EMBL and the University of Heidelberg in 2002, graduating summa cum laude. From 2003 to 2008, she conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, supported by EMBO and HFSP fellowships. In 2009, she established her independent research group as a Max-Planck Research Group Leader at the Max-Planck-Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany. From 2017 to 2021, Ilona was a professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Since 2022, she has been the Director of the Institute of Physiology II at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn, Germany. In August 2024, she also assumed the role of Vice Rector for Research and Career Development at the University of Bonn.

Ilona’s research focuses on understanding how neural circuit computations and genetic mechanisms enable animals to adapt, survive, and thrive during different internal and behavioral states in dynamic environments. She has received several prestigious awards for her work, including the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, the Career Development Award of the Human Frontier Science Program, the EMBO Young Investigator Award, and the Dr. Heinrich Baur Award. Her achievements also include an Emmy Noether Group Leader Research Fellowship and an ERC Starting Grant. Since 2021, she has served as a Henriette Heart Scout for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and in 2024, she was elected a member of EMBO.