About me

Beginning my academic training in classical biology I was drawn in by the fields of marine biology, ethology and informatics. I have finalized an interdisciplinary PhD at the Humboldt University in Berlin working with Pawel Romanczuk and David Bierbach as part of the Science of Intelligence Excellence Cluster on the properties of collective information processing and learning. The questions being asked were experimentally tested in natural systems such as fish groups (Poecilia reticulata, Poecilia formosa, and Amatitlania nigrofasciata) which interact with their physical and social environment. Data acquisition was primarily done using custom, open-source software, combining computer vision with deep learning methodology for object detection in order to achieve high throughput video analysis and behaviour quantification. Moving on, I am currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the lab of Albert Kao at the University of Massachusetts Boston, continuing my work on collective learning and decision-making.

Personally my interests revolve around aquatic systems, as I have always been drawn towards water and anything that may inhabit these intricate ecosystems. However, bridging across all natural systems are the complex interactions and mechanisms governing a single organism, groups of animals, or even our societies. I want to shed light on these underlying rules in order to add to a more holistic view on the world and what surrounds us. Learning from such complex systems we can potentially transfer this knowledge to various fields of research, ranging from artificial intelligence and optimization algorithms to socioeconomic implementations such as electoral outcomes and crowd control. My drive is further, to uncover possible manipulative and maladaptive characteristics in our own behaviour in order to work towards a reflected way we may interact with our own environment as a people.