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Dr. Giraldeau earned a PhD in biology from McGill University (1985), during which he studied at Oxford University. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto. In 1987 he began his career as an NSERC Research Fellow in Concordia University’s Biology Department, where he rose through the ranks to become a full professor. In 2000 he became a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UQAM, which he headed from 2007 to 2010. He was also director of the animal care facility at Complexe des sciences Pierre-Dansereau in 2005 and 2006, and then served as vice-dean of research from 2010 to 2014 and dean of the Faculty of Science at UQAM from 2014 to 2017. In addition to serving on and chairing several university committees and bodies, he has also served on numerous international, Canadian and Québec committees, including the Acfas Board of Directors and the executive of the Canadian Council on Animal Care. He has served on the editorial boards of several international scientific journals, including Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society of London, and is an editor for Animal Behaviour and The American Naturalist. 

Luc-Alain Giraldeau is strongly committed to the transmission and mobilization of knowledge and has helped train numerous young scientists. He has published over a hundred scientific articles and numerous books, notably with Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press and Dunod Éditeur. His book Dans l’œil du pigeon, a general -audience work published by Le Pommier in France and Boréal in Quebec, won the Hubert-Reeves Prize and the Grand Prix Moron, a philosophy prize awarded by the Académie française. His outstanding skills as a scientific communicator have made him a sought-after media commentator. He has also acted as an advisor on numerous documentaries and taken part in various initiatives linking science and the arts, such as the 21 Balançoires project and projections on buildings in Montréal’s Quartier des spectacles, two initiatives he is particularly proud of. 

Luc-Alain Giraldeau is the recipient of a career research excellence award from the Université du Québec and the  Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire award from Société française d’étude du comportement animal, in recognition of his significant contribution to the field of animal behaviour.