Nick Barton  studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, and took a PhD with Godfrey Hewitt at the University of East Anglia; he lectured at Cambridge, University College London, and the University of Edinburgh. In 2008, he moved to Vienna as the first Professor at ISTA. His research ranges from a long-term field study of a hybrid zone in the snapdragon Antirrhinum majus, through analysis of natural and experimental sequence data, to theoretical work on the evolution of complex traits.