Research Team


Group Leader

Ajay Narendra, Associate Professor, MRes Director

Ajay is interested in understanding how insects 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.

Homepage; Flickr; E: ajay.narendra AT mq.edu.au

Postdoctoral Researchers

Marcel Sayre, Postdoctoral Researcher

Marcel is studying the neural circuitry of the central complex in ants and bees.

Website

PhD Candidates

Bhavana Penmetcha, PhD Candidate

Bhavana completed her MRes with us and progressed to a PhD. She is studying the physiology of compound eyes and ocelli in bull ants and native stingless bees.

Website

Casey Forster, PhD Candidate

Casey is our bee wiz! She is studying the effect of pesticides on microbiota and learning and memory in honeybees and native stingless bees.

Website

Giovanni Ramon-Cabrera, PhD Candidate

Giovanni joined us from Ecuador. He is investigating visual ecology of the Australian strobe ants of the genus Opisthopsis.

Website

Saroja Ellendula, PhD Candidate

Saroja joined us in early 2023. She will identify the neural circuitry involved in building visual spatial memories in ants.

Website

Martha Daniel, PhD Candidate

Martha is enrolled in a co-tutelle PhD with us and Martin How (Bristol). Martha studies polarisation sensitivity in mantid shrimps and ants.

Website

MRes Candidates

Anuja Joseph, MRes Y2 Candidate

Anuja joined our group to study the navigational strategies used by ants while walking home backwards.

Website:

Daniel Allman, MRes Y2 Candidate

Daniel will carry out a comparative analyses of jumping choreography in Myrmecia ants.

Website:

Pranav Joshi, MRes Y2 Candidate

Pranav joined us in 2023 to investigate the biomechanics of jumping in Salticid spiders

Website

Recent Visitors

  • Dr Yuri Ogawa, Flinders University, Adelaide
  • Prof Dinesh Rao, Universidad Veracruzana
  • Prof Diana Peerez-Staples, Universidad Veracruzana
  • Prof Christian Peeters
  • A/Prof Marc Seid

Collaborations

  • A/Prof Jan Hemmi, University of Western Australia, Perth
  • A/Prof Richard Peters, La Trobe University, Bundoora
  • Prof Dinesh Rao, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico
  • Dr Fleur Ponton, 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

Vaishnavi Sathyakumar, MRes 2022; Zachary Sheehan, Research Assistant 2020; Yuri Ogawa, Postdoctoral Fellow 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.