Current members
in order of appearance...
​Stephen Montgomery
Associate Prof in Evolutionary Neurobiology and Behaviour
I grew up in the great city of Belfast and read Natural Sciences as an undergrad at Cambridge. 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 at Cambridge in 2016. In 2019 I joined the faculty at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol to build a lab interested in animal behaviour, evolutionary neurobiology and neuroecology. I'm also a Research Associate at STRI, and Associate editor at Proc Roy Soc B and J Evol Biol. 
​Contact: s.montgomery@bristol.ac.uk Twitter Google Scholar
Francesco Cicconardi
HFSP funded Post-doc (with Dr Caroline Bacquet, IKIAM)
I did my on the biodiversity of springtails at the University of Siena. I then had post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Tuscia, “Sapienza” University of Rome, and the University of Innsbruck (Austria). I have worked both on the genomics of model organisms: Bos Taurus and Mus musculus; and non-model organisms, an alpine fly (Drosophila nigrosparsa) and ant (Tetramorium alpestre).  I am very interested in evolutionary biology and biodiversity, and  am fascinated by how evolutionary forces, such as natural selection, shape life.  I try to tackle these problems studying the phylogeny, the phylogeography, and genomics, both at the structural level, and coding and non-coding regions.​ More. Contact: f.cicconardi@bristol.ac.uk Google Scholar Twitter
Laura Hebberecht-Lopez
PhD candidate funded by the ERC
I grew up in Santiago de Compostela and Alicante (Spain), where I started an undergraduate degree in Biology. I then moved to the UK to complete my degree at UEA in Norwich. After working for two years on beetle sexual selection and plant genomic and ecological adaptations, I came to Cambridge to complete an MPhil on butterfly wing pattern development with Chris Jiggins. I am interested in the developmental and genomic mechanisms that facilitate adaptive innovation. My PhD aims to describe the developmental peculiarities of expanded mushroom bodies of Heliconius butterflies. ​Contact: lh588@cam.ac.uk Google Scholar
Amaia Alcalde 
PhD candidate funded by BBSRC SWBio DTP
I completed my BSc in Biology in the University of Navarra (Spain). During my degree I had the opportunity to do a two-months internship in the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Jimena Berni. There, I studied the role played by the Hox genes in neuronal diversification and I became fascinated about developmental neuroscience.  Also, I have always been very interested in evolutionary biology. In 2022 completed a MSc by Research on the developmental mechanism of the mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies, and will stay for a PhD on the same subject.
Contact: a.alcalde@bristol.ac.uk
Jessie Foley 
PhD candidate funded by GW4 MRC DTP
I grew up in the Turks and Caicos Islands and moved to Ireland for my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, where my dissertation focused on the impact of ageing on optogenetics in Drosophila. After this I spent a year at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama working on a different flying insect, first assisting with a project studying the evolution of wing-pattern variation in the Heliconius butterfly genus, and then moving to a fellowship with the EBAB lab investigating the impact of ageing on learning and memory in these relatively long-lived butterflies. My PhD will continue this work, tying together my interests in both the natural world and modern biomedical issues with a project that aims to establish Heliconius as a new model organism with which to investigate natural mechanisms of delayed cognitive decline. Contact: jessica.foley@bristol.ac.uk
Max Farnworth
HFSP funded Post-doc
Since my Bachelor thesis in 2012 I am fascinated by the evolution of nervous systems. Following this work, I tried to explore the different facets of this research area in lots of different animals, which led me to molecular work in Göttingen, behavioural analysis with Julia Fischer at the German Primate Centre and phylogenetic comparative work with Rob Barton in Durham. I did my doctoral work with Gregor Bucher in Göttingen where I worked on comparing the development of an insect brain area, the central complex, between Drosophila melanogaster and Tribolium castaneum, using CRISPR and the expression of a conserved transcription factor. My postdoc project in the EBAB lab will focus on the co-evolution of the central complex and the mushroom bodies, which I will explore using complex anatomical and analytical tools. Contact: m.farnworth@posteo.de ORCID Twitter Google Scholar
David Rivas
PhD candidate funded by Colciencias
I was born and raised in Bogotá (Colombia) where I completed my BSc in Biology at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. At the time, I was interested in population genetics and worked on the phylogenetics and phylogeography of the South American canid genus Lycalopex. Shortly after, I explored evolutionary biology and enrolled in a MSc at the University of Oslo.  I spent the better part of two years working at one of the research stations of the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research in Southern Norway, investigating the potential of recreational fisheries to shape the evolution of Atlantic cod behaviour. After completing my degree, I returned to Colombia where I worked in biology education, before joining Dr. Richard Merrill’s lab as a research assistant working with Heliconius mate choice and life history. For my PhD in the EBaB lab, I am particularly interested on the relative contributions of heritable and plastic variation in brain structure to speciation.​ Contact: gb20421@bristol.ac.uk Twitter Google Scholar
Denise Dell'Aglio
STRI funded Postdoc
Since my undergraduate degree, I have been actively studying Heliconius butterfly ecology. I began my research experience during my undergraduate and master studies in Biology at UFRGS, Brazil. For my PhD, I moved to the University of Cambridge, UK, to study behavioural and sensory ecological interactions between Heliconius butterflies, their predators and host plants. I then was awarded with a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at STRI, Panama, allowing me to conduct a project on behavioural differences between two species of Heliconius butterflies. In my last postdoctoral research, I studied oviposition preference through odour perception of Bruchid beetles on Vicia fabacrops at INRAE, France. As a Postdoc at University of Bristol in the EBAB lab, I will explored the role of mushroom body in spatial and visual memory in Heliconius butterflies through behavioural experiments. Now as a STRI fellow, I am investigating the use of polarised light in Heliconius ​behavioural decisions.
 Contact: d.dalboscodellaglio@bristol.ac.uk Twitter Google Scholar
Louise Bestea
Fyssen Foundation Fellow
My research interests lie in the integration of sensory perception and how it affects foraging strategies of pollinators. During my MSc studies, I studied the pollination system of an endemic plant species (Watsonia knysnana) under the supervision of Dr. Mark Brown in the NGO Nature’s Valley Trust (South Africa). My main research experience took place at the Research Centre of Animal Cognition (CRCA) in Toulouse (France), under the supervision of Dr. Gabriela de Brito Sanchez and Prof. Martin Giurfa. First as an intern, then as a PhD candidate, I focused on the modulation of sensory perceptions and motivational processes underpinning foraging behaviour by the short neuropeptide F (sNPF) in honey bees (Apis mellifera). My post-doc project at the EBAB lab will allow me to focus on gustation coupled to a behavioural innovation and to explore how it modifies a species’ cognitive ecology, using the Heliconiini tribe as a case study.
​​Contact: louise.bestea@bristol.ac.uk Google Scholar
Elizabeth Hodge
PhD candidate funded by GW4 MRC DTP
I finished my undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Bristol in 2022. Having become very interested in sensory systems and the function of nervous systems, I joined the EBAB lab for an MSc by research where I have been working on cognition and sensory neuroanatomy in Heliconius. More specifically, I have been looking at differences in modality-specific long-term memory between Heliconius and outgroup species, and at whether sensory neuroanatomy and pathways in Heliconiini butterflies are conserved between species. I will be staying in the EBAB lab for a PhD building on this research, where I will be looking at how learning and memory circuits mature in Heliconius.
Jake Morris
NERC funded Postdoc 
Details coming soon...! Or not... he's holding out. He's not a fish.
​​​Contact:  jake.morris@bristol.ac.uk Google Scholar
Marianne Clert
MRes candidate
I grew up in Paris and then moved to England in order to complete my bachelor's in Biology at the University of Bristol. I was able to participate in units on various subjects such as developmental biology, sensory ecology or the evolution of sociality. I was able to work alongside Dr Imogen Sparkes for my practical project. The project aimed to better understand the behaviour of Golgi bodies in plant cells by observing their movements and interactions with other organelles. More recently, my interest has shifted towards evolutionary biology and insect ecology. Therefore, I am starting a MSc by Research which will focus on the factors underlying the mushroom body expansion in swallowtails butterflies.​
​​​Contact: ns20370@bristol.ac.uk
Theodora Loupasaki
PhD candidate, cotutelle with Ajay Narendra (Macquarie)
​​​​I was born in Athens and moved to Bristol in 2018, where I completed an MSci in Biology. During my academic studies, I was fascinated by how the structure and function of brain centres result from ecological adaptations pertinent to an organism’s habitat and niche. For my Master’s year, I joined the EBAB lab. My dissertation focused on the expansion of mushroom body lobes in Heliconius butterflies, and how that relates to increased long-term memory demands. Building on this, I will be doing a cotutelle PhD in Bristol and Macquarie, where I will work with Dr Stephen Montgomery and Dr Ajay Narendra respectively. My project will focus on convergent neural mechanisms of spatial foraging between the Heliconiini butterflies and native Australian Hymenoptera
​Contact: ​​​ns20370@bristol.ac.uk
Legend Zhou
MRes candidate
​Since a young age, I have been very interested in the evolution of cognition and intelligence. After completing my undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of St Andrews in 2024, I am excited to be joining the EBAB lab for my MSc by research project, supervised by Dr Stephen Montgomery and Dr Jakob Vinther. Specifically, I am examining the preserved brain tissues of a dope 95-million-year-old cephalopod fossil and placing it within its phylogenetic context. More broadly, I hope to shed light on the pace and timing of brain expansion in cephalopods, contributing to our understanding of this unique evolutionary trajectory of cognition.
​​​Contact: as24926@bristol.ac.uk
Adam Ritchie
MRes candidate
​Growing up working on a farm sparked my interest in biological interactions and behaviour, leading me to pursue undergraduate studies at Oxford Brookes University. There, I developed a keen interest in the applications of machine learning within genomics, infused by its potential to enhance biological research. I am now excited to begin my MSc by research in the EBaB lab under the supervision of Dr Stephen Montgomery and Dr Francesco Cicconardi. My project will focus on designing a deep learning model to identify enhancers in open chromatin regions linked to brain expansion in Heliconius butterflies, combining computational and biological insights for evolutionary research.
​Contact: ​​​wd24922@bristol.ac.uk
Rami Kersh-Mellor
MRes candidate
I grew up in Sheffield and moved to Bristol in 2021 to complete my BSc in Biology. My interest in the evolution of cognition and behaviour began with cephalopods, but I came to realise that Heliconius butterflies would be a more suitable (and ethically acceptable) system for studying brain evolution. I was introduced to the EBaB lab during an internship focused on caterpillar grouping behaviour. A year later, I began my MRes under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Montgomery and Dr. Sinead English. My project investigates the energetic impacts of Heliconius brain expansion and dietary innovation. By examining whether pollen feeding alleviates the energetic burden of brain expansion, or if other physiological trade-offs are involved, this research aims to enhance our understanding of how constraints and dietary innovation influence brain evolution. Contact: ​​​r.kersh.2021@bristol.ac.uk

Gone but not forgotten...

Alice Séguret
Post-doc: Alice was a postdoc in the lab focusing on the phylogenetic analysis of chemoreceptor genes in relation to social parasitism in Hymenoptera, leaving in 2024. She currently works as a Scientist at Wobble Genomics in Edinburgh. Google Scholar
Callum Mclellan 
PhD student: Callum completed his PhD in 2023. He focused on the evolutionary and ecological factors that select for grouping behaviour in butterfly larvae combining comparative analyses, field experiments and molecular biology. He is now a post-doc with Sinead English. Google Scholar
Benito Wainwright 
PhD student: Benito completed his PhD in 2023.  His PhD project focuses on a diverse group of tropical butterflies native to the Amazon rainforests of Eastern Ecuador. He explored whether repeated colonisation of the same microhabitats leads to the evolution of the same sensory adaptations at the anatomical, neural and molecular level. After his PhD he moved up to St Andrews as an 1851 Research Fellow with Nathan Bailey. Twitter Youtube Google Scholar
Fletcher Young
PhD student and Post-doc: Fletcher was the lab's first PhD student, starting in 2017, and stayed with us until 2023 as a post-doc. He played a critical role in establishing our behavioural experiments on comparative cognition across Heliconiini, and mastered comparative methods to test key adaptive hypotheses about mushroom body expansion. Twitter and Google Scholar
Antoine Couto
Post-doc: Antoine was the lab's first post-doc, and part of the lab from 2017-2023, first working on our ERC project on Heliconius mushroom bodies, and then as a Leverhulme Trust post-doc on the evolution of olfactory systems in Hymenoptera. He contributed greatly to our neuroanatomical work and lab life. He went on to work again with Jean-Christophe Sandoz at CNRS Gif.  Google Scholar
Greta Hernández and Made Roger
Field assistant/STRI research intern (in Gamboa, Panama): Our field assistants in 2023, both are currently finishing thier masters studies. 
Josie Macpherson
Field assistant/STRI research intern (in Gamboa, Panama): Josie was one of our assistant during the 2022 field season, working mostly with Jessie Foley on age-related projects. She's hopping on to study for a PhD on frogs in Edinburgh.
Denise Dell'Aglio (Part I)
STRI Postdoc (Gamboa, Panama): Denise collaborated with us during my post-doc at Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where she was looking into behavioural differences between two closely related Heliconius species with divergent ecologies and brain morphologies. She went on to do a postdoc position at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE), but joins us again in 2022.
Priscila Moura
PhD student: Priscila was PhD student supervised by Prof Márcio Cardoso at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), and co-supervised by Stephen. Her PhD explored the cognitive ecology of Heliconius including field and cage based experiments, all while working for he Brazilian government. She is currently considering her next more. More. 
Daniele Atzeni 
Visiting Masters student: Daniele was Masters student in Neuroscience at University of Trieste, Italy, who I joined the lab to write his MSc thesis on the evolution of mushroom bodies in Heliconius butterflies. His timing was impeccable and he spent most of his year with us in lockdown during the pandemic. Daniele currently works as a journal specialist at Frontiers publishing.
Tom Land
MRes student (University of Southampton):  Tom worked with us on a research project while he was a masters student at the University of Southampton. He compiled datasets on primate brain size, binocularity and ecology to explore the Visual Brain Hypothesis. Since graduating he has been working as a researcher in the BBC's Natural History Unit.
Billy Morris
MPhil student:  Billy completed an MPhil with the lab in 2017/18 investigating the ecological and sensory basis of neurological adaptation in ithomiines. He is currently working as a Research Assistant in The Drosophila Connectomics Lab, at the Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
Anaïs Larue
Field assistant/STRI research intern (in Gamboa, Panama): Anaïs was our assistant during our COVID-19 struck 2020 field season. She made it back to France just as the Panamanian borders closed...
Jessica Foley (Part I)
STRI Short-Term Fellow (in Gamboa, Panama): Jessie worked with us on a study investigating the effects of age on learning and memory. After traveling, she returned to Trinity College Dublin to try and figure out what James Joyce's Ulysses is all about, but then came back to do a PhD!
Lina Gabriela
Field assistant/STRI research intern (in Gamboa, Panama): Lina was our assistant in 2019, helping rear larvae and run experiments, while also collecting life history data. She joined Richard Merrill's group, working in Colombia, while applying to start grad school.​ 
Wyatt Toure
McGill Masters student/research intern (in Gamboa, Panama): Wyatt worked with us in Gamboa, Panama for three months in 2019 as part of his Masters course. He conducted a test of circadian memory in Heliconius. He has returned to McGill to complete his studies with Simon Reader.
Asli Aydin
Erasmys summer student, Summer 2018: Asli joined us for 8 weeks before returning to finish her undergraduate degree in Turkey. She worked on a project with Billy Morris investigating adaptations in the antennal lobe in ithomiine butterflies.
Yiqing (Sunny) Wang
Undergraduate placement student 2017/18: Sunny joined us for her 'year in research' as part of her undergraduate degree at Imperial College London. She conducted a project on olfactory learning in ladybirds. Sunny left to return to Imperial and complete her degree and is now working on Snow Leopards for the China Field Conservation Alliance.
Simon Marty
Masters placement student 2018: Simon visited us while doing a Masters in Biology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, working with Antoine Couto on variation in sensory projection areas of the Heliconiini mushroom body. He returned to Lyon to complete his Masters, and is now studying for a PhD with Jean-Christophe Sandoz at CNRS-Gif, and collaborating with us again!
Monica Monllor
Field Assistant, Gamboa 2018: Monica joined us as a field assistant working on learning in Heliconius. She previously worked on mate choice in ithomiines during a Masters internship at the Natural History Museum, Paris. She left us hoping to pursue her interests in behavioural evolution.
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.She's currently studying for a PhD on behavioural genetics at the Max Planck.  Follow Güniz here.
Undergraduate research project students:
Victoria Kwok, Helen-Llambias-Maw, Feyza Yarar and Amandine Muller (Cambridge, 2017/18), Anne-Marie Bowring, Polly Hooton, Charlotte Thompson and Kate Davies (Cambridge, 2018/19), Bonnie Mallet and Izzy Murcutt (Bristol, 2019/2020), Sam Langford and Troy Hawkins (Bristol, 2020/2021), Max Conway and Dan Phillips (Bristol, 2021/2022).

MSci research project students:
Katie Pearson Bunt (Bristol, 2019/20), Tom Land (Southampton, 2020/2021), Emma Hair (Bristol, 2020/2021), Jules Claeys and Vanda Miklos (Bristol Bioinformatics, 2020/21), Theodora Loupasaki (Bristol, 2021/2022).