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Dr. Natasha Mhatre, PI & chief worrier, Assistant 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. Erin Brandt, Western Postdoctoral fellow
Dr. Erin Brandt is a postdoc in the Mhatre lab, starting 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 examines  the relationship between temperature, movement, and perception in spider sensory organs.   
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.
Reese Gartly is a Masters student in the lab exploring how leg and body morphology impacts spider mechanorecpetion. Outside of the lab she enjoys playing hockey, reading and being outdoors exploring everything she can!
Undergrads
Ryan Weiner is a 3rd year undergrad pursuing an Honours Specialization in Integrated Science specializing in Biology. Last summer he worked as a WUSRI student to finish a research project using FE models to understand how wing resonances and cricket song frequency are influenced by vein structure. He is currently pursuing a 4th year research project in the Mhatre lab. During his free time, he enjoys watching hockey (Go Leafs Go!), cooking, watching TV (He is a huge Game of Thrones fanatic), and travelling!
Updates soon

Alumni

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)