Dr Claudianos obtained his PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Australian National University in 1999. Dr Claudianos went on to study ‘malaria’ development as NHMRC-funded CJ Martin Fellow at Imperial College, London, before returning to the Australian National University in 2002, where he worked on the mosquito and honeybee genome projects including the role of carboxyl/cholinesterase molecules in central nervous system synapses. Dr Claudianos was recruited to the Queensland Brain Institute in 2007.

Marcus Gallagher is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland, Australia. He received his Bachelor of Computing Science and Graduate Diploma in Science from the University of New England, Australia in 1994 and 1995 respectively, and his PhD in 2000 from the University of Queensland, Australia. His main research interests are metaheuristic optimisation and machine learning algorithms, in particular techniques based on statistical modelling. He is also interested in biologically inspired algorithms, methodology for empirical evaluation of algorithms and the visualization of high-dimensional data.

Originally from Mumbai, India, Dhanisha holds a PhD in biological sciences from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, University of Mumbai, India awarded in 2003. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute working with Professor Perry Bartlett’s group. Her research interests include understanding molecular mechanisms regulating adult neural stem cells and gaining insights into the role of adult neurogenesis during learning and memory.

Wei Luo received his PhD in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland. His research interests include machine learning, data mining, information visualization, and their applications to healthcare.

Angelique Paulk is a postdoctoral research fellow working with Bruno van Swinderen at the Queensland Brain Institute.

Originally from Germany, Judith holds a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute, working in the Visual and Sensory Neurosciences Group. Judith research interests include understanding how animals detect, process, and use sensory information from their surroundings such as visual and olfactory cues, to successfully navigate their environment, forage for food and solve complex problems.

Ruth was awarded a PhD from the University of Queensland in 2008. Her PhD work was part of the RatChat project and involved grounding a spatial language in mobile robots. She is currently a postdoc with the RatChat project, which is extending the language abilities of the robots. Her research interests include the evolution of language, spatial language, and developing a computational model of language for mobile robots.

Dr Bruno van Swinderen received his PhD in Evolutionary and Population Biology in 1998 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His graduate work was on general anaesthesia in a Caenorhabditis elegans model, applying both quantitative genetics and molecular genetic approaches.

For his postdoc at The Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in San Diego, California (1999-2003), he switched to Drosophila melanogaster in order to develop methods of studying perception in the fruit-fly model. He ran a lab at NSI from 2003 to late 2007. In February 2008, Dr van Swinderen established a new laboratory at the Queensland Brain Institute.