KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

I'm Lydia France, I started in Zoology at Bristol University and my DPhil was with the Flight Group supervised by Graham Taylor at the University of Oxford. I have been working for the last few years at the Alan Turing Institute working on Research Data Science and applying machine learning to research problems across different disciplines. I have recently started a Schimdt AI in Science Fellowship working on wing morphing during manoeuvring flight at Oxford University and looking to use explainable AI and physics-based ML. My research interests include animal motion, open and reproducible science, and getting intuitive results from complex data. In my spare time I also perform Improv Comedy.

"Bio-inspired configuration and algorithms for vibration source localization"

Jun Wu is currently a postdoc at the University of Oxford, working on the interface of engineering and biology, especially the development of bio-inspired configuration and algorithms for vibration source localization. Before joining Oxford, he got a PhD from the University of Southampton and was a research associate at the University of Bristol, working on the dynamics and control in aerospace and railway engineering.

"The visual guidance of dragonfly aerial combat"

My research focusses on aerial pursuit and similar goal-directed behaviours in flying insects. During my Ph.D. with Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido at the University of Cambridge, I investigated the ways in which miniature aerial predators are specialised to detect and catch their prey. Now as a post-doc with Huai-Ti Lin at Imperial College London, I study the visual guidance that underpins aerial interactions between insects. While I principally work on aerial combat between dragonflies, I have recently been expanding our recordings to include mayflies, damselflies, butterflies, moths, and many other taxa. My goal is to understand the optimisation and trade-offs that shape the patterns of insect flightpaths.

“Feeling flowers for feeding and refueling during flight”

Tanvi is a Ramalingaswami faculty fellow at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence in India, studying insect movement control. She is interested in understanding how body mechanics shapes sensory encoding and motor coordination. Her lab studies the biomechanical and neural control of insect feeding and pollination. Their research focuses on how insects encode proprioceptive and tactile information, how they integrate multisensory feedback to control & coordinate movement and finally how these behaviors shape their environment through pollination interactions.

"A Bioinspired, Information-Rich Approach to Sensor Placement and Active Sensing"

Burak is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), who earned his Ph.D. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2022 as a scholar of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. He completed his B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering with a minor degree in Mechatronics and his M.S. in System Dynamics and Control from Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. His research interests include optimal sensor placement and measurement function forms for highly sensed systems, with applications in biological flight and engineered flight and space systems.

“Mechanosensory

representation of wing deformations”

I received my PhD from Case Western Reserve University in Dr Jessica Fox's lab, where my research focused on inertial encoding mechanisms and flight behaviours in dipteran insects. I then joined Dr. Huai-Ti Lin's lab at Imperial College London, where I use electrophysiological, computational, and ethological approaches to study encoding mechanisms of dragonfly wing mechanosensors and challenging flight behaviours. I am now also working with the Krapp lab to investigate the integration of mechanosensory and visual information for flight control in butterflies and other insects. 

“Synthesizing Spatial Sensitivity Patterns for Sensorimotor Convergence”

Zoe Turin is a 6th year PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a graduate researcher in the Bioinspired Perception and Robotics Lab under the mentorship of Prof. Sean Humbert. Her research aims to improve robots’ capabilities by adapting strategies used by animals to process large numbers of spatially distributed sensory signals. She is developing a mathematical framework to optimize the spatial patterns of information captured by distributed sensors, to improve the robustness and performance of autonomous systems in unstructured environments. Zoe is a former NASA Space Technology Graduate Researcher. Previously, she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.  

“The visual world of free-flight pigeons: Eye movements and optical flow”

Anthony is a senior researcher at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington, where he studies the biomechanics and visual neuroscience of animals in and around the Salish Sea. His research aims to understand how animals move in natural contexts—through complex environments, in groups, and across gradients—and how this ability has been shaped through evolution. Anthony is currently completing postdoctoral research conducted at the University of British Columbia, where he studied avian oculomotor behavior and the natural statistics of optic flow experienced during free flight using animal-borne cameras. Previously, Anthony earned his PhD at the University of Montana, focusing on the biomechanics and evolution of semi-aquatic birds.

"Feather-inspired Flow Control for Stall Mitigation and Load Alleviation"

Prof. Aimy Wissa joined the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at Princeton University as an Assistant Professor in January 2022. She is the director of the Bio-inspired Adaptive Morphology (BAM) Lab. Wissa was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, and she earned her doctoral degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland in 2014. Wissa’s work focuses on the modeling and experimental evaluation of dynamic and adaptive bioinspired structures and systems, such as avian-inspired and insect-inspired wings and robotic systems with multiple modes of locomotion. Wissa is a McNair Scholar. She has received numerous awards, including the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator and NSF’s CAREER awards.

“Flies tune the activity of their multifunctional gyroscope”

Anna Verbe is a research scientist in the team Recurrent Circuits, Learning and Memory lead by Claire Eschbach at NeuroPSI Paris Saclay in France. Previously she got her PhD in France in the Biorobotic team of Marseille then she was working in Bradley Dickerson lab at Princeton Neuroscience Institute. She is particularly interested by the link between environment, mechanosensors and neuroethology, and today she will explain how flies tune the activity of their multifunctional gyroscope. 

“Optics and vision: tuning of flower and butterfly coloration to the visual systems of observers”

In my research I study how flowers and animals get their colours. I want to understand the mechanistic underpinnings of the beautiful flora and fauna around us, as well as how these colours evolve in the eyes of natural observers, such as pollinators or mates. I study this evolutionary question using techniques from biology (evolutionary theory, behavioural experiments) and physics (optics, anatomy). 

“Does glossiness impact targeting of moving objects?”

Amanda is a DECRA (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award) Fellow at the University of Melbourne researching animal visual systems and colouration. Her research aims to link ecological function and evolution of animal colouration with visual neurophysiology of observers. Currently, she is investigating how movement impacts function and perception of animal colours, and the mechanism and function of far red vision. She enjoys exploring applied outcomes for her research, which has led to diverse partnerships. Previously, Amanda has worked outside of academia as a data scientist and, prior to this, she completed her PhD at Tufts University in Boston.

“Linking Sensory and Motor Systems via Active Sensing”

Ismail Uyanik is an Associate Professor of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory of Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) at Johns Hopkins University from July 2017 to July 2019. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University in May 2017. Throughout his Ph.D. studies at Bilkent, he developed model-based and data-driven system identification methods for the analysis and control of legged locomotion. He also received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the same department in June 2009 and August 2011, respectively. His current research focuses on discovering the principles of sensorimotor control in animals by developing novel techniques in system identification theory, neuroscience, and robotics. Dr. Uyanik is a recipient of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship.

“The Smellicopter”

Melanie Anderson is a Washington Research Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the Biology Department at the University of Washington. She received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2021 from the University of Washington, where she created the Smellicopter, a biohybrid palm-sized drone capable of autonomously seeking out the source of an odor using a live moth antenna as an onboard chemical sensor. She continues to further this technology by collaborating with other researchers in the Riffell Lab at UW to apply Gene Editing and Machine Learning techniques to differentiate between chemicals using the moth antenna.

“Transient flow phenomena in biological flight.”

Alfonso is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Davis, where he investigates the biomechanics and aerodynamics of avian flight. His main interest is in quantifying unsteady flows associated with different avian configurations during a flight maneuver. Supporting a multidisciplinary approach to research, he combines high-resolution imaging techniques with mathematical models. Before joining the BIRD Lab at UC Davis, Alfonso obtained his PhD at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and was awarded a research mobility grant to visit EPFL in Switzerland. He takes his passion for raptors beyond his professional life, volunteering at a wild bird rehabilitation center, or patiently waiting for hours outdoors to capture that perfect shot.