We are very pleased to welcome Abhilasha Joshi to the Unit for a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford and registered at Brasenose College. She has joined Professor Somogyi’s laboratory and her co-supervisor is Dr David Dupret. Her research project “Behaviour and neuronal network state-dependent activity of identified neurons in the temporal cortex of the brain”. Abhilasha was awarded the Felix Scholarship, which is primarily aimed at Indian graduate students to help them to achieve their potential by coming to the U.K.
Abhilasha completed a Dual Degree BS_MS in biology from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali where she went with a national level fellowship, the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY, translated as National fellowships for students interested in pursuing research careers), which is given by the Government of India to promote research in basic sciences. Her master’s thesis research work was in “Evolutionary biology of aging and mate choice.”
In 2011, she attended a short discussion forum in UC Berkley under Dr. Terence Deacon to understand the evolution of language. In 2012, she joined Dr. Loren Frank’s lab at UC San Francisco for a summer internship where she studied decision making in rats.
Abhilasha has learnt two Indian classical dance forms - Bharatanatyam and Kathak. She has also worked with migrant construction labor community in India and is a frequent trekker.
Nandy, B., Abhilasha J., Zeeshan, S.A., Sen, S., Prasad, N.G. Degree of adaptive male mate choice is positively correlated with female quality variance. Sci. Rep. 2, 447; (2012).