Group Leader
Ajay Narendra, Associate Professor
Ajay is interested in understanding how arthropods navigate in their natural habitats. He is also interested in the sensory structures and neural machinery they have evolved to memorise, integrate and recall information.
Marcel Sayre joined us as a postdoctoral fellow in 2023. He is funded by an ARC Discovery Project to investigate the neural circuitry of ants in the context of spatial memory.
Carmen da Silva is a Macquarie Research Fellow hosted by Oliver Griffith and Ajay Narendra. Carmen studies the adaptive capacity of Australian native bees to climate change.
Vanessa Penna Goncalves was awarded her PhD in 2025 at Macquarie University. She then joined us as a postdoctoral fellow to study neural circuitry of arcuate body in jumping spiders.
Saroja Ellendula joined us in early 2023. As part of her PhD, she is identifying the neural circuitry required for building visual spatial memories in ants.
Martha Daniel is a co-tutelle PhD candidate with us and Martin How (U of Bristol). Martha is investigating foraging behaviours of mantis shrimps both in the wild and in laboratory conditions.
Anuja Joseph completed her MRes and started a PhD in late 2023. Anuja is investigating how native stingless bees modify their flight patterns to avoid collisions with naturally occurring obstacles.
Pranav Joshi completed his MRes and started a PhD in 2024. Loves his Jumping spiders and is studying the jump biomechanics of Salticid spiders in the context of miniaturisation.
Theodora Loupasaki is a co-tutelle PhD candidate with us and Stephen Montgomery (U of Bristol). She is studying the evolution of long-term memory in insects.
Anna Seibel started her MRes in 2025. She is studying the navigational strategies of jumping spiders that live and exclusively forage on trees.
Jade Thurlow started her MRes with us in 2025. Jade is studying the kinematics of swimming behaviour in Australian ants.
Gunnnar Tribelhorn joined us for a MRes program in 2025. He is studying the navigational behaviours of 3D specialist jumping spiders.
Nikki Chin joined us for her Graduate Diploma in Research program. She is learning numerous skills from videography and video analyses to study a variety of arthropods.
Recent Visitors
Dr Sam England; Dr Yuri Ogawa; Prof Dinesh Rao; Prof Diana Peerez-Staples; Prof Christian Peeters; A/Prof Marc Seid
Our Wonderful Collaborators
Prof Ximena Nelson, University of Canterbury, NZ; Prof Jochen Zeil, Australian National University, Canberra; A/Prof Jan Hemmi, University of Western Australia, Perth; A/Prof Richard Peters, La Trobe University, Bundoora; Prof Dinesh Rao, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico; A/Prof Fleur Ponton, Macquarie University, Sydney; Prof Marie Herberstein, Macquarie University, Sydney; Dr Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel, UNSW ADFA campus, Canberra; Prof Andrew Barron, Macquarie University, Sydney; Dr Yuri Ogawa, Flinders University, Adelaide; Prof Nathan Hart, Macquarie University, Sydney; Prof Heloise Gibb, La Trobe University, Bundoora; Prof Barbara Webb, University of Edinburgh; Dr Stanley Heinze, Lund University; Prof Marc Seid, University of Scranton, Pennsylvania
Alumni
Giovanni Ramon-Cabrera PhD, 2025; Casey Forster PhD, 2025; Luis Robledo-Ospina Postdoctoral Fellow 2024; Daniel Allman MRes 2024; Pranav Joshi MRes 2023; Anuja Joseph, MRes 2023; Bhavana Penmetcha, PhD 2023; Marcel Sayre, PhD 2023; Vaishnavi Sathyakumar, MRes 2022; Zoltán Kósci, PhD 2022; Zachary Sheehan, Research Assistant 2020; Yuri Ogawa, Postdoctoral Fellow 2019; Bhavana Penmetcha MRes 2019; Frances J Kamhi, Postdoctoral Fellow 2019; Ravindra Palavalli-Nettimi, PhD 2019; Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel, PhD 2018; Duncan Jaroslow, MRes 2018; Zachary Sheehan, MRes 2017; Alex Swaja, RA 2017; Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel, PhD 2018; Sara Wood Hons 2014, Chloé Raderschall, MPhil 2015; Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel, Hons 2013; Samuel Reid, PhD 2011.
Ecological Neuroscience Group 