A career working on fish

Abstract The fishes are an extremely diverse and interesting group of vertebrates, and provide protein and joy to humans throughout the globe. When I was asked if I could write an essay about my career as a fish ecologist my first thought was: what is there to write about? After some thought I decided to give it a try. I describe how I ended up studying fish and the diversity of fish and topics that I have worked on during my career. My path has included a lot of stochastic events, and I did not have a long-term goal or plan. My road has been a long and winding one, requiring collaboration with people with diverse backgrounds and competences. Teaching and supervision have also been a large part of my career. Many students later became colleagues, and some have become friends. Society and the university have changed over time; I include some comments on university education at the end.