past Doctoral students
Richa Singh
Richa Singh (2014 - 2020)
Richa was my first Ph.D. student and she was instrumental in getting my lab set-up. Her work in BEL was on the sensory ecology of a field cricket, Acanthogryllus asiaticus. She examined how natural and aftificial light and noise at night affect the mating behaviour of the species. SHe also examined the affect of increased developmental temperature on the behaviour and survival of the species. Together her Ph.D. thesis work provides important insights into how anthropogenic changes are likely to nocturnal ectotherms. Her google scholar profile is here.
After completing 2 years postdoctoral work at IIT Mandi and WII, Richa joined as a Nehru-Fulbright Postdoc at Purdue University with Dr. Ximena Bernal in 2022.
Sonam Chorol
Sonam Chorol (2016 - 2022)
Sonam worked on communicative complexity in avian vocalizations. Her work involved detailed acoustic analyses of the breeding song of Purple Sunbirds and the calls of Jungle Babbler. For her Ph.D. Sonam examined within call complexity, compositionality and linguistic laws in the calls of Jungle Babblers, phonology in Purple Sunbirds breeding songs and also examined heterospecific eavesdropping in non-alarm vocalizations of sympatric social Babblers. Her work has resulted i nmany novel insights in avian vocalizations that further our understanding of communicative complexity in birds. Her google scholar profile can be found here.
Sonam is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Dr. Raghav Rajan at IISER Pune where she continues to work on bird song complexity, but now examining the neural underpinnings of this.
Yambem Soniya
Yambem Soniya (2015 - 2023)
Soniya helped me start the long-term project on Jungle Babblers. Her Ph.D. thesis work examined temporal variation in the behaviours of Jungle babbler, context-dependent communication, alloparental care and brood parasite recognition in this cooperatively breeding passerine. Her work is foundational to all future investigations in this species, and if the future generations of BEL will look further, it would be because we stand on her shoulders. You can read about her work on Jungle Babbler context-dependent vocalizations here.
Soniya is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Soumya Iyengar at National Brain Research Centre.
past POSTDOCS
Ranjana Jaiswara (2014 - 2017)
Ranjana was the first postdoc to join BEL. She is primarily a field cricket taxonomist. At BEL, Ranjana worked on delineating species boundaries in the field cricket Teleogryllus mitratus , found all over India, and other Teleo species. In the process, we discovered a new species of Teleogryllus from Kasargod Kerala. She then worked on developing a key to Indian Teleogryllus species. This part was done in collaboration with Prof. Laure Desutter-Grandcoloas, MNHN, Paris. Together, the work was published in Zootaxa in 2021.
Ranjana is currently an INSPIRE Faculty at Panjab University.
Mahandran V (2017 - 2019)
Mahandran joined BEL to work on the mutualisim between three species of fruit bats and a bat-dispersed plant, Mahua (Madhuca indica). He worked on the foraging behaviour and bat-mediated dispersal of Mahua fruits. He also examined the underlying chemical ecology that signal ripening status of the fruits to fruit bats. This was done in collaboration with Dr. Vinayak Sinha, Dept of EES, IISER Mohali. This work was published in Acta Ethologica in 2023.
Mahi is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Yunnan, China.
Sujata Saini (2019 - 2021)
Sujata is a moth taxonomist by training. She joined BEL to work on the moth diversity of Himalayas and trained 2 Master's thesis students and several lab interns. She also examined allometric relationships in selected moth species. He work, along with the work of past Master's thesis students is being compiled into a field-guide on Moths of Sivaliks.
Sujata is now an Assistant Professor at Chandigarh University.
Ashish Jha (2022 - 2023)
Ashish joined BEL as a IISER Mohali Postdoc in March 2022. He was later awarded a SERB-NPDF to wrok with me in Feb 2023. At BEL Ashish worked on understanding avian diet using Isotope Ration Mass Spectrometry (carried out in collaboration with Dr. Shreyas Managave, IISER Pune).
Ashish currently holds a Scientist C position in Wildlife Intute of India.
PAST MASTER'S THESIS STUDENT
2024
Aparna K
Shubham Verma
2023
Arunima Jain
Swastika Rupal
Rahul Sharma
Anjna
Maia Lisa Dsouza (2023)
Prabhat Sharma
Kartikey Awasthi
2022
Geetika Aggarwal
Kaustubh Verma
Barsa Das
Vaibhav
Sooraj Murali
Afzal C.
Sayantani Paul
Ushnik
2021
Ankush Sharma
Angelina Lakra
2020
Prathibha P.
Deepak Negi
Pankhuri Singhal
Rohit Negi
Kathik T.
Aditya Krishnan
2019
Jain P. K.
Awani Bapat
2018
Tarunkishwor Yumnam
Pranav B.
2017
Lata Kalra
Nakul Raj
Monika SIngh
Samriddhi Panwar
2016
Shekhar M. A.
Shiven
Soumya Gupta
2015
Shivprasad Patil
Aparna worked with me on examining avian species richness using manual and passive acoustics methods. She is currently a Project Associate at SACON, Coimbatore.
Shubham worked with me on examining impact of infection on field cricket survival and reproductive traits. He is currently looking for PhD positions.
Arunima worked with me on the function of allogrooming behaviour in Jungle Babblers. In addition, Arunima contributed to the MINIVET app by curating images and data. She is currently working as a project assistant with Dr. V V Robin at IISER Tirupati.
Swastika worked with me on the vocalizations of House Crows. Her findings suggest that House Crows have a context-dependent vocal repertoire. My lab is working on the extensions of her findings in collaboration with Prof. Soumya Iyengar at NBRC, Manesar. Swastika is currently enrolled in a Masters in Cogntivie Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar.
Rahul worked with me on sex-specific behaviours in Jungle Babblers. He also examined the relationship between behaviours and habitat type in Jungle Babblers. Rahul is now pursuing an MBA degree from IIT Mandi (Data Science & AI program).
Anjana worked with me on the ontogeny of cricket calling behaviour and mate-choice decisions by conspecific females in two species of field crickets. Further, Anjna worked in lab earlier on moth wing venation. For that she skilfully illustrated the wing venation in several moth families along with Sujata.
Maia worked with Dr. Laela Sayigh for her Master's thesis at the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts, USA towards developing an acoustic alert system for cetacean mass stranding. Prior to that, for her summer internship, Maia worked with Holger Klinck at Cornell University on the vocalizations of Arabian Sea Humpback whales. You can read the paper here.
Prabhat worked with Dr. Bittu Rajaraman for his Master's thesis at Ashoka University, Sonipat. His thesis focussed on behavioural individuality in decoy effect in Zebrafish. He is interning at Ashoka University and looking for PhD positions.
Kartikey worked with Dr. Jonathan Henshaw at the University of Freiburg for his Master's thesis at on the evolution of female ornamentation and nuptial gifting. His thesis focussed on developing an agent-based simulation to predict the ecological parameters driving the evolution of female ornamentation. He has now joined Dr. Henshaw for his PhD. Here is paper based on Kartikey's summer project with him.
Geetika worked with me for her Master's thesis examining the vocal repertoire of Large Grey Babblers, a cooperatively breeding bird. Her thesis findings suggest that these birds posses context-specific vocalizations, produced in various affiliative and agonistic contexts. Geetika is currently a PhD student with Prof. Kartik Shanker at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc , working on mixed species bird flocks.
Kaustubh worked with me on examining geographical variation and phonological syntax in the vocalizations of Purple Sunbird for his Master's thesis. Kaustubh is currently a PhD student with Prof. Hema Somanathan at IISER Trivandrum. He is passionate about insect conservation, birds and astrophotography.
Barsa worked on variation in moth diversity along an elevational gradient in North Western Himalayas under my supervision. After completing her Master's thesis, she has been working with Prof. Trevor Price on a project examining insect diversity in Birch forests in the Himalayas. Barsa is currently a PhD student at the Museum and Institute of Zoology, Warsaw, Poland.
Vaibhav worked under my supervision for his Master's thesis for which he examined the ontogeny of long-distance mating calls in a field cricket, Acanthogryllus asiaticus. His findings imply that a male cricket 's calls are a proxy for its age and can potentially be used in making mate-choice decisions. He is currently interning at IISc, Bangalore and looking for a PhD position.
Sooraj worked under my supervision for his Master's thesis on microgeographic variations in the non-breeding vocalizations of Purple Sunbird. He is currently working at the Wildlife Institute of India as a Project Associate on a project under National Tiger Conservation Authority.
Afzal worked under my supervision for his Master's thesis on male calling behaviour and female mate-choice in a field cricket Velarifictorus sp. After finishing his Master's thesis, Afzal joined Dr. Debojyoti Chakraborty at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology as a Project Assistant.
Sayantani was an external Master's thesis student from St. Xavier's College Kolkata. She worked on worked with me on the variation in allogrooming and foraging behaviour in Jungle Babblers.
Ushnik worked with Prof. H. Ehrenreich, MPI-Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, for his Master's thesis on the behaviour of mice with syndromal autism. After finishing his Master's thesis, he joined the University of Antwerp for a MS in biomedical Neuroscience. He is now a PhD student at the University of Zurich.
Ankush worked on the taxonomic revision of some moth species belonging to the family Noctuidae based on external genitalic attributes. For this he examined specimen collected by Sujata from the biodiverse regions of Shivalik and Dadh Uparla of Himachal Pradesh as part of BEL's long-term project on insect diversity mapping. The work was carried out under Sujata's mentorship.
Angelina worked with Dr. V. V. Binoy at NIAS, Bangalore on people's perception of Mahseer in relation to its conservation.
Prathibha worked with me on the behaviour and neurobiology of crickets in collaboration with Dr. Joby Joseph, Univ of Hyderabad. She also worked with Richa on a project examining the effect of temperature on the signalling behaviour and development of Acanthogryllus asiaticus. You can read their paper here. After her Master's ,she joined Michael Smith at Auburn University for her PhD.
Deepak worked with me on examining the wing venation patterns of 77 moth species belonging to 6 families. The specimens were collected by Sujata from the Punjab and Shivaliks. She oversaw Deepak's work and together they developed a detailed dichotomous key of the studied families as part of Deepak's work.
Pankhuri worked under my supervision on the non-breeding vocalizations and song structure of Purple Sunbirds. While Pankhuri worked on birds, her heart was squarely set on primates. Now she is working on her desired model system as a PhD student under the supervision of Robert Hampton at Lab of Comparative Primate Cognition, Emory University.
Rohit was the other staunch monkey-lover of BEL. He worked under the joint supervision of Prof. Mewa Singh and me on the antipredator behaviour of Nicobar Long-tail Macaques towards snake threats. Following this he was awarded several fellowships to work on various primates across the world. He has now joined Dr. Lydia Luncz at MPI Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig as a PhD student.
Karthik worked under my supervision on the effect of varying social and acoustic environments on the courtship behaviour of a field cricket, Acanthogryllus asiaticus. After his Master's he joined the Kalahari Meerkat Project to learn about the social life of meerkats.
Aditya worked under the supervision of Dr. Holger Goelritz at the MPI- Ornithology on the behavioural and acoustic adaptations of free-flying horseshoe bats in response to jamming. He continues to work on bats, but now as a PhD student with Prof. Cynthia Moss at John Hopkins University, USA.
Jain, my namesake, worked under the supervision on understanding the behavioural response of female field crickets to road traffic noise. After his Master's, Jain joined Dr. Michael Reichert at Oklahoma State University and is now working on frog acoustics and behaviour.
Awani worked under the supervision Dr. TNC Vidya, JNCASR on understanding the foraging behaviour of female asian elephants. Awani, then spent some time studying parrots at MPIO and eventually joined the University of Vienna as a PhD student to study social information use in free-flying ravens.
Tarun initiated the "MOTH PROJECT" at BEL. He worked under my supervision on the diel and seasonal variation in the diversity of moths of IISER Mohali. He then joined Dr. Ullasa Kodandaramaiah at IISER TVM as a PhD student where he continues to work on lepidopteran insects, albeit on butterflies now. He is a phenomenal photographer and deeply interested in conservation of biodiversity.
Pranav was an external Master's thesis student at BEL, from Pondicherry University. He worked on the behaviour and acoustics of Yellow-billed babblers. He is currently a PhD student at CES, IISc under the supervision of Dr. Umesh Srinivasan.
Lata worked under my supervision on the agonistic behaviour in crickets. She stayed on in BEL for a year after her Master's thesis, continuing to work on aggression in crickets and the effect of social environment. She then joined Prof. Mark Bee at the University of Minnesota and is working on the perceptual basis of auditory grouping in frogs.
Nakul was an external Master's thesis student from Central University of Punjab, Bhatinda. He worked on the vocal repertoire of common Mynas. He then joined BEL as a project assistant and stayed on for a couple of years, helping us photograph our moth collection and help put together a book on Moths of Shivaliks. He is now a wildlife photographer working with Sandesh Kadur at Felis Creations, Bangalore.
Monika was an external Master's thesis student from Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. For her Master's thesis work she examined the diversity of avian nectarivores on various tree species. She then did her PhD from the Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding, Coimbatore for her PhD and is currently a postdoc at the Univ. of Bayreuth, Germany.
Samriddhi worked with me for her Master's thesis examining call preferences and premating reproductive isolation in field crickets.
Sekhar worked under my supervision on his Master's thesis examining navigation in Zebrafish. For his Master's thesis he demonstrated that water turbidity impedes effective navigation in Zebrafish. Further, his work showed that Zebrafish use visual landmarks to navigate under turbid conditions. You can read the paper here. He is currently a PhD student at the University of North Dakota.
Shiven worked under my supervision on his Master's thesis examining species delineation via premating behavioural isolation in Teleogryllus species complex.
Soumya worked under my supervision on her Master's thesis examining winner-loser effect in a field cricket species. She then went on to join Prof. Mark Bee as a PhD student at the University of Minnesota.
Shiven was the first student to join my lab. He worked under my supervision for his Master's thesis examining conspecific spacing in natural choruses of a field cricket species. He moved on to working on biomedical research for his PhD in Germany.