Raoul Mulder

Raoul Alexander Mulder is an Australian ornithologist and evolutionary ecologist. Based at the University of Melbourne, he is an Associate Dean of Academic Innovation for the Faculty of Science and former head of the School of BioSciences.

Research career Mulder completed his Bachelor of Science at Australian National University, majoring in biochemistry, but a field trip to Kakadu National Park turned his attention to biology instead. He completed his Honours and PhD at the Australian National University under ornithologist Andrew Cockburn, submitting his thesis in 1992. He spent one year as a technical advisor to the World Wide Fund for Nature in southern Madagascar, then served as a World Learning academic director in both Botswana and Madagascar. His lab maintains wild study populations of black swans at Albert Park Lake in Melbourne, and superb fairy-wrens at Serendip Sanctuary near Lara, Victoria. In 2015, Mulder served as head of the newly formed School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne.

Using DNA fingerprinting, Mulder's PhD research revealed widespread extra-pair paternity in the superb fairy-wren: up to 76% of offspring were sired by males outside their social group. This is among the highest cuckoldry rates of any bird. In black swans, his research found that one in six offspring are the result of breeding outside the social pair.