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Stephen Montgomery NERC IRF and lab PI I grew up in the great city of Belfast and first came to Cambridge to read Natural Sciences as an undergrad. I stayed on to do a PhD on primate brain evolution with Nick Mundy, then joined Judith Mank’s lab, briefly in Oxford and then at UCL, under successive early-career fellowships from The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and The Leverhulme Trust. During this time I started a series of projects on brain evolution in Neotropical butterflies that developed into the research subject of my Research Fellowship, funded by NERC and the ERC, and brought me back to the Zoology department in 2016. Contact: shm37@cam.ac.uk |
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Antoine Couto
Newton/Wellcome Trust ISSF funded Post-doc I began my research career by studying olfactory learning and neural plasticity in Apis mellifera, under the supervision of Jean-Christophe Sandoz at the CNRS. I stayed there to conduct a PhD on the olfactory system and behaviour of an invasive hornet, Vespa velutina, exploring possible management strategies, and developing my interest in comparative neuroanatomy and the evolution of social behaviour. I was particularly interested in identifying adaptations in the nervous system that favoured the repeated evolution of eusociality in Hymeneptera. After a short post-doc on the effect of pesticides on honeybee olfactory perception, I joined the EBAB lab to investigate how the brains of Heliconius butterflies are shaped by their unique ecology and behaviour. More. Contact: arc86@cam.ac.uk |
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Yiqing Wang (Sunny)
Undergraduate placement student I'm a biology undergraduate student from Imperial College London who is passionate about almost every aspect of biology! Animal behaviour has always been a part of my interest. By understanding how animals behave and why they do so, we can better save the endangered species or eradicate the invasive ones. As part of my undergraduate study, I have joined the EBAB Lab for a year to study the behaviour flexibility of Harlequin ladybirds and its possible association with brain structure. I hope my work will help us understand the biology of this invasive species in the UK. |
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Fletcher Young
PhD student I’m originally from Perth, Australia, and completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Western Australia, before spending a year at the University of Bristol. I’ve recently joined the EBAB lab as a PhD student to investigate the evolution of spatial learning in Heliconius butterflies and its potential links with mushroom body morphology and pollen-feeding behaviour. I’m interested in all aspects of arthropod evolution, with my previous work focusing on fossil Cambrian arthropods from the Sirius Passet in northern Greenland. Contact: fjy22@cam.ac.uk |
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Billy Morris
MPhil student Over the course of my undergraduate degree, at the University of Bristol, I completed projects modelling the hunting behaviours of cheetahs, and investigating how the social interactions of wasps, Polistes canadensis, are influenced by genetic relatedness, both on a dyadic and colony level. Subsequently, I worked on the Dwarf Mongoose project in South Africa, and at the University of Surrey as a Lab Technician. I am now undertaking a MPhil investigating the ecological and sensory basis of neurological adaptation in ithomiines. Through this I hope to diversify my skill set and prepare myself for undertaking a PhD next year (hopefully!). Contact: wjm45@cam.ac.uk |
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Simon Marty
Masters placement student As part of the generalist Master degree of Biology I am studying at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, I have joined the EBAB lab for a five-month internship. I’m interested in the cognitive abilities that allow organism to respond to environmental conditions and in the neural basis from which those abilities emerge. I’m very happy to be working on mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies with Antoine. Contact: simon.marty@ens-lyon.fr |
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Current Field Assistants
Monica Monllor - based in Gamboa, Panama, assisting Fletcher. Current 3rd year undergraduate project students Victoria Kwok - evolution of mammalian play. Helen Llambias-Maw - beetle brain morphology. Feyza Yarar - Bicyclus brain morphology. Amandine Muller - Cetacean brain evolution. |
Gone but not forgotten...
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Güniz Göze Eren
Genetics Society summer student, Summer 2017 Güniz joined us for an 8 week placement before returning to Bilkent University in Turkey to finish her undergraduate studies. Follow Güniz here. |