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Dr. Natasha Mhatre, PI & chief worrier, Associate Professor & CRC in Invertebrate Neurobiology, Department of Biology, Western University.

We study mechanosensory systems. We also occasionally study the signalling end of the same systems. But what   I   really do is hope, fondly (and perhaps, crazily) that we can, for at least this small corner of biology, develop the sort of experimentally testable and tested, philosophical, theoretical and predictive framework that physics has managed. I acknowledge that I may have physics, or worse, maths envy. Worse still, I may still be hoping to earn the Ph part of my PhD.  I think of this extension of this xkcd comic often.

PS: Here's how you say my second name!

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Dr. Sajesh Vijayan, Western Postdoctoral fellow and soon to be HFSP fellow
Dr. Sajesh Vijayan is interested in sensory ecology and its role in animal behavior. He joined the lab as a postdoc in March 2024 after completing his PhD from IISER TVM under the supervision of Prof. Hema Somanathan. His dissertation focused on the behavioral and visual ecology of the Asian giant honeybee Apis dorsata. During his stay at the Mhatre lab, he will be looking at vibro-acoustic communication in honeybees.
Grad students
Hossein Asgari is a PhD candidate in the Mhatre lab. He has studied MSc Sports Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University. His dissertation focused on biomechanics where he analyzed movement patterns and kinematics of a wide range of runners obtained from an IMU mounted on the sacrum. His research interests in the Mhatre lab involve studying the biomechanics of spiders and capturing/analyzing their movements.
Jake Smith is a Masters student in the lab looking into how temperature affects a developing cricket’s wings ability to produce sound. Outside of the lab, Jake enjoys natural history, reading, sculpting, & bird watching.
Kenique Stewart is an MSc student in the lab and is investigating the developmental effects of temperature on sensory perception in crickets. She graduated from Western with a degree in Integrated Science with an honors specialization in Biology. Her undergraduate thesis investigated the formation of fossilized dinosaur poop. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, and watching anime.
Mika Little is a Masters student in the lab investigating vibration filtering and damping in spider leg joints. In his free time Mika enjoys reading, drawing, and playing music on the drums and ukulele.
Betty Paton is a Masters student co-supervised with the Sinclair lab studying freeze-tolerance in the cricket nervous system. When she’s not in the lab, Betty enjoys cooking, textile crafts, and looking for weird bugs.
Undergrads
Jacky Li is a first year undergraduate in Medical Sciences. In the lab, he assists with animal care, focusing specifically on black widow spiders. He has a keen interest in both human and insect anatomy. Outside the lab, he enjoys competing in debate tournaments and working on computers.
Amin Elahi is a fourth-year medical sciences student with a keen interest in clinical research. In his role as a lab assistant in the Mhatre lab, he collaborates with graduate students to investigate spider body mechanics. Additionally, he is responsible for various tasks related to animal breeding and care programs. In his free time, he enjoys reading and playing or watching soccer
Amir Docheshmeh is a third-year undergraduate student completing an honours specialization in Medical Science. He has a strong interest in anatomy and cell biology and is also passionate about wildlife. In addition to his academic pursuits, Amir plays chess professionally and enjoys reading and playing soccer in his free time.
Updates ongoing

Alumni

Reese Gartly was a Masters student who graduated in 2024. While here she explored how leg and body morphology impacts spider mechanorecpetion. Outside of the lab she enjoys playing hockey, reading and being outdoors exploring everything she can!
Dr. Erin Brandt now an alumnus of the Mhatre lab, started in September 2019. She is broadly interested in sexual selection, thermal biology, and the mechanistic bases of behavior. Dr. Brandt graduated with her Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from UC Berkeley in 2019. She conducted her dissertation work in the Elias Lab, focusing on how temperature impacts sexual behavior, physiology, and movement ecology in jumping spiders. Her work in the Mhatre lab examined  the relationship between temperature, movement, and perception in spider sensory organs.   
Om Shanbhag (Undergraduate thesis student, 24-25)
Naomi Shenouda (Undergraduate thesis student, 24-25)
Yusuf Zaidi (RA, Summer 24)
Gabriella Simonelli (Undergraduate thesis student, 23-24)
Mackenzie Joa-Ladd (Research Assistant, Summer 23-24)
Zainab Zahra (USRI fellow 23-24)
Wendi Zhang (USRI fellow, 23-24)
Michelle Koo (Research Assistant, Summer 22-23)
Ryan Weiner (USRI fellow and Undergraduate thesis student, 22-23)
Mouad Elganga (Research Assistant, Summer 22)
Lachlan Fisher (USRI fellow, Summer 22)
Aryan Sadghian (USRI fellow, Summer 22)
Kofi Brako (Research Assistant, Fall & Winter 21-22)
Muzammil Ahmed (Research Assistant, Winter & Summer 21-22)
Yoshan Sasiharan (Research Assistant, USRI fellow, 20-22)
Hiba Elhassan (Undergraduate thesis student, 21-22)
Sarah Duke (Research Assistant, and Undergraduate thesis student, 20-21)
Carolyn Xin (Undergraduate thesis student, 19-20)
Anastassia Mena (Undergraduate thesis student, 20-21)
Linda Wang (Research Assistant, 2019-2020)
Morteza Al Rabya (Research Assistant, 2020-2021)
Nancy Kim (Database engineer and Research Assistant, 2021)
Matthew Nadarajah (Database engineer and Research Assistant, 21-22)
Daniel Xie (Research Assistant, 21-22)