He is a professor of zoology at the University of Otago and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Robert Poulin grew up in Canada, taking his bachelor's degree in aquatic biology at McGill University, Montreal and gaining his doctorate at Université Laval, Quebec City.
[1] He moved to New Zealand in 1992, where he is a professor of zoology, leading a research group studying the ecology of parasites at the University of Otago.
[1] In 2002 he was awarded a James Cook Research Fellowship by the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
[1] In 2007 he won the Robert Arnold Wardle Award of the Canadian Society of Zoologists.