Research Interest
I am broadly interested in understanding the processes driving individual and collective decisions in social groups. Specifically, I am fascinated by the interplay between social interactions and individual and collective decisions. At the individual level, I am intrigued by how members of a group integrate social and environmental signals and cues into their decision-making process. I'm also interested in how these decisions can modulate the group’s collective response and how this change in response at the group level feeds back into the individual’s behaviour.
Currently, I'm a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Erica van de Waal's group at the Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne.
Research Approach
My experimental approach involves:
Observations
of behaviour at the group and individual level
Manipulations
of external and social factors in groups
The projects I undertake, inspired by Tinbergen's four questions, are characterised by:
Integrative
research, combining behaviour, mechanisms and simulations
Collaborative
research, bringing together expertise in different fields
Going ahead, I'm interested in working on diverse social groups and utilising newly developed tools like:
Quantitative
tools like automated behavioural posture estimation
Networks
of sensory interactions amongst individuals
ScienceOut
Making science accessible to the public is something I'm very passionate about. I co-founded an online platform ScienceOut to focus on stories of science done by scientists in India. The main idea behind the platform is to provide an inclusive coverage of the diverse voices in Indian academia, by not only highlighting research stories (in english and regional languages), but also the early career researchers (ECRs) behind some of these stories. You can read my articles and the interviews I have done for free on the platform.
Animal Behaviour Live
I'm also equally interested in making the process of research inclusive. I have joined up with a fantastic team of ECRs from across the globe as part of the Animal Behaviour Live platform. We are using this platform to organise events in our field of animal behaviour with inclusivity and accessibility at it's core. This includes round tables on inclusivity, a seminar series highlighting research in animal behaviour from across the globe (and in which PIs and ECRs have the chance to jointly present their work) and an online conference. We are currently in the 6th edition of the conference, with about 1000 registrations from 50+ countries each year (65% self-identified as ECRs and 66% self-identified as female).
Still here?! If you are interested, you can check out some more details of my background