Welcome!

I am Shoubhik Banerjee a graduate student in the Kao Lab at the University of Massachussetts Boston.

I am interested in understanding how collective animal groups like fish schools, bird flocks and ant colonies coordinate individual behaviors and decisions to function in unpredictable environments. Specifically, I work on identifying the error correcting mechanisms that have evolved in collective groups to suppress the spread of false alarms and how social feedback, in the form of changing leadership, affect these mechanisms.

To address these questions, I take an interdisciplinary approach combining mathematical models based on physical theories with high resolution remote sensing datasets collected during behavioral experiments.

Apart from Science, my hobbies include playing the piano, birding, bouldering and sketching.