About Dr Stephan M. Blank

Dr Stephan M. Blank has been working since 1995 – initially at various project sites – at the (Senckenberg) German Entomological Institute (SDEI), formerly in Eberswalde, since 2004 in Müncheberg. He received his doctorate in 2002 under Prof. Dr Walter Sudhaus at the Free University of Berlin on the taxonomy, ecology and phylogeny of primordial wasps. Since 2008, Mr Blank has been a permanent research scientist at the SDEI. As curator he is responsible for the Hemimetabola collection. From 2013 to 2014 he was acting director, and since 2014 he is deputy director of the SDEI.

His research projects focus on plant wasps (Hymenoptera, "Symphyta") and their parasitoids. In cooperation with Dr Andreas Taeger and partly with Andrew D. Liston, for example, the books "Pflanzenwespen Deutschlands - Kommentierte Bestandsaufnahme" (1998), "Recent Sawfly Research: Synthesis and Prospects" (2007) and the "World Catalog of Symphyta (Hymenoptera)" (2011) were published. Current projects deal, among other things, with the biosystematics of the primordial wasps (Xyelidae). The focus is now on North American and East Asian species.

From 1998 to 2008 Mr Blank was managing director of the DGaaE, and from 2009 to 2019 he was treasurer. He was co-organiser of the Entomologist Conferences 2011 in Berlin, 2015 in Frankfurt am Main, 2017 in Freising and 2019 in Halle/Saale.