Stefan Hiendleder studied Agricultural/Animal Science 1982-1987 at Justus-Liebig University (JLU) of Giessen, Germany where he obtained a PhD (Dr.agr.) working on sheep endocrinology and cellular metabolism in 1989. He was appointed Assistant Professor Animal Breeding and Genetics at JLU in 1990. After sabbaticals at the Academy of Sciences, Kazakhstan (1991) and the University of Saskatchewan, Canada (1993) he obtained a habilitation degree in Animal Genetics (Dr.agr.habil.) with a thesis on 'Isolation and Characterization of QTL Candidates in Ruminants' in 1996. He worked at JLU as Associate Professor until joining the Molecular Animal Breeding and Biotechnology Group at the Gene Center of the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich, Germany in 2001. Dr. Hiendleder focused on the emerging field of Epigenetics and completed a second habilitation degree (Dr.med.vet.habil.) with the thesis ‘Non-Mendelian Effects in Animal Breeding and Biotechnology'. He was appointed JS Davies Professorial Fellow in 2005 and leads a research group investigating non-mendelian genetic and epigenetic effects in the Davies Research Centre, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences and the Robinson Research Institute.