Drawing on her varied experience in ecology, behavior and neuroscience, her research program takes an integrative approach to understanding insect navigation. Research projects will take advantage of new tools such as machine-vision tracking to compare Drosophila species’ movements and multiphoton microscopy to identify neurons and circuits used during navigation.

I am interested in exploring insect navigation from the level of neurons to species. Orientation and navigation are fundamental for animals to move through their environments and require integration of a variety of sensory cues. For many animals, such as locusts or monarch butterflies, navigation depends on the internal state of the animal and environmental conditions. Like these larger insects, even the humble vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, can disperse long distances using celestial cues. In my lab we will leverage genetic tools and multiphoton imaging to probe the neural circuits underlying navigation in flying flies. Using machine-vision and quantitative behavioral analysis in D. melanogaster and other species, we explore how animals process multiple sensory cues and how ecology and evolution have shaped navigation behavior.