I did my master's thesis with Prof. Judith Burkart and Nikhil Phaniraj in the Evolutionary Cognition Group, Institute of Evolutionary Anthropolgy, University of Zurich. I established an automated 3D pose-tracking pipeline to study gaze following, interpersonal behavioural synchrony and posture imitation in common marmosets using DeepLabCut and StereoCameraCalibrator.
This was a credited semester project with Dr. Raghav Rajan at Department of Biology, IISER Pune. I conducted a closed-loop behavioural assay using syllable variance measured in real-time to provide negative reinforcement against a high number of introductory note syllables (INs). We saw a significant reduction in the mean number of INs in a test bird.
This was a credited semester project with Dr. Raghav Rajan and Nandu T.S. at Department of Biology, IISER Pune. We compared the song sequences of 4 Estrildid species and found that they begin their song with specific syllables, and the loudness of the first five syllables in a song increases, whereas the inter-syllable duration, similar to the patterns observed in introductory notes of Zebra finches.
This was a research internship with Prof. Sylvia Cremer and Linda Sartoris at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). In this experimental project, ants were first exposed to a fungal pathogen for a brief period and later to contaminated larvae, but there was no effect of recent pathogen experience on sanitary brood care. We concluded that a low-level contamination is lethal for isolated larvae, but not adult ants.
This was a credited semester project with Prof. Deepak Barua at Department of Biology, IISER Pune. In this project, I compared four different flowering synchrony indices using simulated flowering populations in R, which had different levels flowering intensities and time distributions. I modified an existing measure to better capture synchrony by comparing existing overlap of flowering distribution to the maximum possible overlap using convolution.
This was a credited semester project with Prof. Sutirth Dey at Department of Biology, IISER Pune. In this project, I did a comprehensive literature review on the human gut microbiome - the diversity, factors that affect microbiome composition, metabolism, immune interactions and dysbiosis.
This was an online mentored project with Prof. Raghavendra Gadagkar at the Indian Institute of Science. This summer project involved reading several books on animal behaviour, and writing articles based on them, one of which got published on a science communication platform. I also did a literature review of common principles across social and individual immunity.
This was a remote project with Dr. Nathalie Stroeymeyt and Adriano Wanderlingh at the Bristol University. This remote project involved annotating the behavioural repertoire of Lasius niger ants tagged with QR codes before and after exposure to a fungal pathogen.