Matthias got a masters degree in Zoology (mental rotation in bottlenosed dolphins) from the University of Regensburg, Germany and got his PhD from the University of Berlin, Germany ( visual and acoustic vigilance in bottle nosed dolphins).

Before coming to ARL, he worked at KBMML in Hawaii for 10 years (a decade with Dolphins!) where he was involved in cognitive and sensory research on bottlenosed dophins and behavioural fieldwork with Humpback Whales. Matthias loves to dive, surf & hike. He also loves cooking, playing piano, classical music, photography and books. His favorite color is BLUE (just in case you were thinking of getting him a Hawaiian shirt).

As to his reasons for migrating to ARL form KBMML, he says " If I would have stayed any longer in Hawaii, I would have grown a dorsal fin and started to whistle and click!" (he already does).

when he is not riding around on his VROD, he is working on Biosonar (dolphin echolocation) and Humpback Whale song.

right nwo he is in Hong Kong a lot on a collaboration with Ocean Park working there with two pacific bottlenosed dolphins, Ginsan and Anson