PhDs & Postdocs: Collective Cognition In Social Insects, Weizmann Institute, Israel

Ofer Feinerman's Lab, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, is currently looking to hire PhD students and postdocs to work in their group.

The aim of this project is to gain a deeper understanding of the concept of collective cognition in social insects. We approach this question by studying cooperative transport by groups of ants, a setting which allows us to compare the navigational problem solving capabilities of groups of different sizes down to single ants. High level tracking,  data analysis, and theoretical considerations are employed to draw out the connections between these organizational scales.

The project will be performed in the Feinerman Social Insect Behavior group which is part of the Department of Physics of Complex Systems in the Weizmann INstitute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. The lab is composed of people with shared interests and highly variable backgrounds: physics, neuroscience, biology, math, and chemistry.

http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/feinerman/

If you are interested in joining our team, it would be beneficial to have expertise in one or more of the following.

Behavioral observation

Animal cognition

Coding and Image Analysis

Analytical capabilities such as statistical mechanics, algorithmics, and information theory.

If interested, please send an email of interest (as a single pdf file including a letter of motivation, a short summary of research interests, a CV, and contacts of two potential referees) to ofer.feinerman@weizmann.ac.il