Locations: University of Bern with secondment locations at Norwegian University of Life Sciences & Vencomatic Group

Alex obtained his Masters in Biology from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, India. His thesis focused on understanding how consistent differences in behavioural traits that influence competition and colonization lead to spatial niche partitioning between two ecologically similar species of house geckos. After his MS, he joined Dr. Axel Brockmann’s lab at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore as a Research Fellow. He worked on circadian regulation of foraging behaviour and gene expression patterns in the Giant Asian honeybee, Apis dorsata and the Western honeybee, Apis mellifera. For his PhD he aims to improve the transition between the rearing and laying periods in chickens by developing housing that would encourage greater and earlier locomotion among vertical tiers in the rearing period. He is co-supervised by Drs Michael Toscano and Ariane Stratmann at the University of Bern.