People

Scarlett Howard

Group leader

Scarlett is a lecturer and research group leader in the School of Biological Sciences. Her research spans cognition, behaviour, pollination, ecology, zoology, neurobiology, environmental change, and bio-inspired solutions.

She predominantly works with bees and other insects to explore the cognitive abilities of miniature insect brains. Her work on honeybee cognition and pollination spans between collaborations across the world.

Leslie Ng

Research officer

Leslie recently completed his PHD at the University of Melbourne (2023) and is interested in all things insect cognition. He especially loves to chat about honey bee behavioural training, time sense and numerical cognition.

Aislinn Primmer

PHD student

Aislinn completed her Bachelor of Science (Zoology) in 2021. Her honours research is focusing on the personality of native Australian bees. She is investigating whether the activity, boldness and exploratory behaviour of native bees differs across an urbanisation gradient.

Olivia Rumbold

Honours student

Olivia is currently completing her Bachelor of Science at Monash (2023). Her honours research focuses on honeybee cognition and pattern learning abilities. Her research interests are understanding the cognitive limits of a species, along with understanding the effects of changing environments on animal behaviour.

Jess Herbert

Phd student

Jess is pursuing a PhD in Australian native bee cognition, focusing on the effects of climate change. They also recently completed a Masters of Research at Macquarie University, focusing on the effects of ant-mimicry on jumping spider behaviours.

Lee Santoso

Honours student

Lee has completed his Bachelor of Zoology at Deakin University and is now working on exploring how miniature brains process numbers for his Honours research. He has great appreciation for interdisciplinary perspectives, and is particularly interested in how cognition research informs us about the world we live in.

Laure Tosatto

Postdoc

Laure completed her PhD in 2022 at Aix-Marseille University, France. She has a background in cognitive psychology and comparative cognition in primates (associative, statistical, and sequence learning). She is currently a postdoctoral fellow, thanks to a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, and is interested in the numerical skills of honeybees and octopuses. In particular, her current project deals with these species’ ability to use symbolic representations of numerosities and tries to understand to what extent associative learning mechanisms may account for such complex cognitive systems.