Chaitanya S. Gokhale is a Professor of Theoretical Biology at the Chair for Computational and Theoretical Biology at the Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg. He was born in Pune, India on 17 June 1984.
Chaitanya completed his postdoctoral research at the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand (2014-2016) and at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany (2011-2014). He served as Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology from 2016-2023 and was a Full Member of the Kiel Evolution Center during this time.
His research focuses on theoretical biology with applications to evolutionary dynamics, eco-evolutionary systems, and the mathematical foundations of biological processes. He is particularly interested in evolutionary game theory and its applications to understanding complex biological systems.
He is fluent in Marathi (mother tongue), English, German, and Hindi.
2026
The Historical Biogeography of the New World Black Birds (Icteridae)
Axel Arango, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
ARPHA Preprints
2026
Optimising play for learning risky behaviour
Dharanish Rajendra, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
2026
Phenotypic polymorphism via mate copying
Srishti Patil, Sabine Nöbel, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2026
How competition can drive allochronic divergence: A case study in the Marine Midge, Clunio marinus
Alexander G. G. Jacobsen, Tobias S. Kaiser, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
PLOS Computational Biology
2026
The Historical Biogeography of the New World Black Birds (Icteridae)
Axel Arango, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
Frontiers of Biogeography
2026
Host-initiated microbial association leads to stable ectosymbiosis in an ecological model
Nandakishore Krishnan, István Zachar, Ádám Kun, Chaitanya S. Gokhale, József Garay
PLOS Computational Biology
2026
Candidozyma auris (Candida auris) as a harbinger of novel fungal pathogens
Carla E. Schuh, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
mSphere
2026
Cross-Species Comparisons of Individual Differences in Social Behaviour: Methodological Challenges and Solutions
Simon M. Breil, Aparajitha Ramesh, Barbara A. Caspers, Isabel Damas-Moreira, Uljana Feest, Marie I. Kaiser, Claudia Voelcker-Rehage, Jessica Coenen, Melanie Dammhahn, Laura Diprossimo, Ahana Aurora Fernandez, Chaitanya S. Gokhale, Tobias Hecker, Joseph I. Hoffman, Joscha Kärtner, Oliver Krüger, Niclas Kuper, Joachim Kurtz, Sakari Lemola, Claudia Massaccesi, Denis Meuthen, Sina Mews, Benjamin Risse, Lukas Röseler, Ramona Schoedel, Ricarda I. Schubotz, Sophie Siestrup, Mitja D. Back
Zenodo
2026
On the evolution of emergence patterns driven by environmental cycles
Dharanish Rajendra, Jule Neumann, Tobias S. Kaiser, Chaitanya S. Gokhale
bioRxiv
2025
Host-initiated microbial association leads to stable ectosymbiosis in an ecological model
Nandakishore Krishnan, István Zachar, Ádám Kun, Chaitanya S. Gokhale, József Garay
bioRxiv
2025
Evolution of first aid and social wound care in an army ant society
J.J. Lagos-Oviedo, Dharanish Rajendra, Chaitanya S. Gokhale, Thomas Schmitt, Erik T. Frank
bioRxiv
2025
Higher-order equivalence of Lotka-Volterra and replicator dynamics
Chaitanya S. Gokhale, Arne Traulsen
bioRxiv