Honorary Associates

I am interested in understanding how sensory input drives the generation of different behaviours, and how this information is integrated and transformed by neural circuits. I am an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Cambridge where my work focuses on generating and interpreting synaptic-resolution connectomes, or wiring diagrams, of the Drosophila central nervous system. These maps encompass up to 167,000 neurons and over 120 million connections between them. They allow us to identify full neural circuits and cell types, and to trace how information travels from the periphery to the brain and ventral nerve cord and ultimately to the muscles that drive behaviour. Comparing the connectomes of different individuals, different sexes and different species gives us insights into biological variation, sexual dimorphism and how evolution shapes neural circuits.