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.
Experimental 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
Background
I’m an engineer by training and completed my Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.), majoring in Biotechnology, from the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, India (graduating top of my class in the department).
My first experience in academic research was in the summer of 2011, in the lab of Dr. Upendra Nongthomba at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
I was funded during this internship through an Indian Academy of Science Summer Research Fellowship.
After my B.Tech, I directly joined the graduate school at the National Centre for Biological Sciences – Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India.
Under the guidance of Dr. Axel Brockmann in the Honey Bee Lab, I worked on a diverse range of projects related to the honey bee waggle dance behaviour.
I successfully defended my thesis in October 2019 and have been associated with NCBS as a Bridging Postdoctoral Fellow since then.
My first research stint outside India was in Germany was in 2015 in the lab of Dr. Ricarda Scheiner at the University of Würzburg, funded by the DAAD “A New Passage to India” Fellowship.
Recently, I was hosted by Dr. Morgane Nouvian and Dr. Anja Weidenmüller as an Invited Research Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg in the University of Konstanz.