Current Lab
We are a group of enthusiastic people who are fascinated by the diversity of life, in form and function. This fascination in combination with our passion for basic science has brought us together here. People in the lab have diverse interests under the overarching theme of behavioural ecology.
Principal Investigator
Manjari with the youngest member of lab, Anushka!
Appointments and Academic History
- Oct 2020: Associate Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, IISER Mohali.
- 2013 - 2020: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, IISER Mohali.
- 2013: NSF postdoctoral fellowship* at Syracuse University, USA (*declined).
- 2013 - 2016: Adjunct Faculty, School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, NIAS, Bangalore.
- 2011 - 2012: Post-doctoral intern, IEBES, University of Zurich.
- 2011: Visiting Postdoc, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol.
- 2010 - 2011: Research Associate, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
- 2004 - 2011: Ph.D. student, CES, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Ashish Jha (2022 - )
Brief Bio
- Ashish has a B.Tech and M.Tech in biotechnology and developed an interest in Ecology after his Masters. In 2014 he joined for LaCONES, CCMB, Hyderabad for his PhD. for which he studied the phylogeny and population genetics of
- Yellow-throated Bulbul, a rare and threatened bird, endemic to the Deccan peninsula. He completed his Ph.D. in 2020 and joined Kerala Agricultural University as a Research Associate in Kerala Bird Atlas project. It is India’s first state-wide Bird Atlas and Asia’s largest bird atlas in terms of spatial and taxonomic coverage. In March 2022, he joined BEL as an IISER Mohali Postdoctoral Fellow. In November 2022, Ashish was awarded the prestigious SERB-NPDF to continue his work at BEL, IISER Mohali. Ashish is an ornithologist at heart and is committed to enhancing our understanding about Indian Birds and working towards their conservation.
- At BEL he will be studying avian diet using Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry.
- 2021: Research Associate, Kerala Bird Atlas, KAU
- 2014-2020: Ph.D., LaCONES, CCMB - JNU
- 2012-2014: M.Tech (Biotechnology), IIT Kharagpur
- 2008-2012: B.Tech (Biotechnology), NIT Raipur
Ph. D. Students
Soniya Yambem (2015 - )
UGC- Senior Research Fellow (2015-2020)
Gaurav Singh (2020 - )
Kanika Rajput (2020 - )
UGC- Senior Research Fellow (2020 - )
Anway Sarkar (2021- )
CSIR- Junior Research Fellow (2021- )
Soniya, Kanika and Anway are working on various aspects of acoustic communication in social babblers and their social behaviour.
Gaurav is working on soundscape ecology ad passive acoustic monitoring.
All of them need to conduct extensive fieldwork to collect data and do extensive lab-based work.
Master's Students
Maia (2022-)
Kartikey (2022-)
Swastika (2022-)
Rahul (2022-)
Prabhat (2022-)
Arunima (2022-)
Anjna (2022-)