Doctoral Students



PhD Net Representative

Zoë Goldsborough

Zoë Goldsborough

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Awarded Students

NeuroDoWo 2022
Katja Slangewal received the best poster award for her work "Integrating multiple sources of information, how does the brain do it?", and Yannick Günzel received the best talk award for his presentation "Hopper by name, hopper by nature. The state-dependent startle response of the desert locust." more

Current Doctoral Students

Cecilia Baldoni

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council

Nadia Balduccio

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Representative

I am an ecologist specialized in tropical ecosystems. I investigated a diverse array of wildlife in South America, Africa and Asia, putting conservation at the forefront of my work. In my PhD, I focus on the effect of human (Homo sapiens) hunting on mammal abundance and movement patterns. In the wider study site of the LuiKotale Bonobo Project, DRC, I assess the mammal community across areas that have been protected for different lengths of time.

Conservation • Monitoring • Mammal Community • Hunting

Iris Bontekoe

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council

Maria Camila Calderon

IMPRS Doctoral Student

I study group foraging in the Neotropical greater spear-nosed bat. In collaboration with Teague O'Mara and the Dechmann lab, I map resource distribution and combine it with high-resolution movement and acoustic data of whole groups of bats. I investigate how group foraging decisions can be facilitated by social information and the social interactions of the groups.


Group foraging • High-resolution spatial and acoustic data • Bats

Luigi Colin

IMPRS Doctoral Student
University Konstanz

Melanie Dörr

IMPRS Doctoral Student
University Konstanz

Narcís Font Massot

IMPRS Doctoral Student
Konstanz

Roberto Garza

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council

Zoë Goldsborough

IMPRS Doctoral Student

I am a behavioral ecologist, studying the cultural transmission of behaviors and how this relates to socio-ecological, environmental, and individual differences. By combining observations with non-invasive experiments and statistical modeling, I aim to learn more about animal culture. I study social learning of stone tool use in island living white-faced capuchin monkeys, with the aim to discover which factors drive the development of this behavior, as island populations seem to be more prone to develop tool use. 


Tool use Cultural transmission • Thanatology • Capuchins

Emily Grout

IMPRS Doctoral Student
Konstanz - Bücklestraße

I am a behavioural ecologist, interested in communication in social mammals. Collaring white-nosed coatis living in Panama, I collect audio, high-resolution accelerometer and GPS data to assemble a call repertoire in combination with observed behaviours. I study the resulting effects of vocalisations on group cohesion, dynamics and movement, and the influence of environmental variation on mechanisms used in communication.


Communication & Collective Movement • Food For Thought • Coatis 

Yannick Günzel

IMPRS Doctoral Student
University Konstanz

Odd Jacobson

IMPRS Doctoral Student
Konstanz

I am a wildlife ecologist, specialized in field-based behavioral research. I am broadly interested in animal movement and space-use in group-living animals. By combining longitudinal data with spatial analytical tools, I investigate how demographic change influences home range behavior in groups of white-faced capuchins. My current research focuses on how sleep site locations can be used to leverage historical data from before GPS technology was introduced. Using this knowledge, I plan to address how within-group energetic requirements and novel spatial information introduced from immigrants drive space-use patterns over the long-term. 


Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project  Capuchins   Immigration   Longitudinal data   Home range 

Youn Jae Kang

IMPRS Doctoral Student
Konstanz ZT 921

Kavitha Kannan

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council
Internship program organization
University Konstanz

Myriam Knöpfle

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Jenna Kohles

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Kajal Kumari

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council

Etienne Lein

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Saverio Lubrano

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Laura Lüthy

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Ashrit Mangalwedhekar

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council

Pranav Minasandra

IMPRS Doctoral Student

I am a computational biologist, interested in collective animal behaviour and movement patterns. My work is focused on social factors that affect synchronisation of wake-sleep cycles in animals. in cooperation with the Jordan lab, I will combine theoretical and experimental approaches to study these factors in cichlid fish. Using a model-fitting approach, I will address questions about the social dimension of synchronisation. 


Behavioural state dynamics Social entrainment Wake-sleep cycle • Spotted hyenas • Cichlid fish

Claudio Manuel Monteza Moreno

IMPRS Doctoral Student
+1.925.384.2051
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama

I am a field biologist interested in behavior, ecology and natural history of forest mammals. I study the dynamics of biodiversity and the effects of disconnected habitats caused by anthropogenic change. By assessing the occupancy of community of forest mammals in the Panama Canal area, I aim to identify the degree of landscape connectivity across plantation mosaics that are disconnecting forests.


Landscape Connectivity Conservation • Coffee • Capuchins

Akhila Mudunuri

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Council

Frederic Nowak

IMPRS Doctoral Student

August Paula

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Emma Rusconi

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Alexandra Schmidt

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Katja Slangewal

IMPRS Doctoral Student
IMPRS Student Representative
Uni Konstanz ZT902


How does the brain integrate different, often conflicting, sources of information to form a decision? Using the small and transparent larval zebrafish, I study the neural circuits involved in decision-making. To understand these circuits, I combine behavioural experiments, model simulations and 2-photon imaging.


Decision-making  • neural circuits • microscopy • zebrafish

Nora Slania

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Kathrine Stewart

IMPRS Doctoral Student

I am a behavioral ecologist broadly interested in how group-living animals make decisions. Currently, I study foraging decisions by wild bonobos (Pan paniscus) to better understand how individuals optimize their nutrient intake and energetic costs as food availability varies, and how these individual foraging decisions influence group fission-fusion dynamics. I am also investigating how social and environmental factors influence groups’ decisions about when and how to interact with one another. 


Decision-making • Foraging Behavior • Bonobos 


Stephen Tyndel

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Tamara Volkmer

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Anja Wegner

IMPRS Doctoral Student

Alumni
including those from the former school IMPRS for Organismal Biology

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