Institute for Neurobiology

Lena Veit

I am a tenure track junior professor and Emmy Noether group leader for Neurobiology of Vocal Communication. My lab studies the neural basis of flexible song sequencing. I did my postdoc with Michael Brainard at UCSF studying context-dependent song learning in Bengalese finches. As a PhD student with Andreas Nieder at the University of Tübingen we established electrophysiology in crows to study the neural basis of executive control in birds. I did my master’s thesis with Michale Fee at MIT, recording the development of respiratory patterns for song in juvenile zebra finches.

Avani Koparkar

PhD student

I'm a BS-MS graduate from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, India. I have always been interested in neuroethology and have worked with Dr. Raghav Rajan on zebra finches at IISER Pune. I did my master's thesis with Dr. Daniela Vallentin at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen on the role of inhibitory interneurons in song learning in zebra finches.

Jacqueline Göbl

PhD student

Jacqueline did her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Neurobiology at the Univeristy of Tübingen. She did her master thesis in the lab of Prof. Benda, studying communication in a wild population of electric fish in Colombia.

Lioba Fortkord

PhD student

Lioba did her BSc and MSc in Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen. In her master thesis in our group she studied the influence of social context on song sequence learning in Bengalese finches.

Priya Binwal

PhD student

Priya graduated with a BS-MS dual degree from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata, India. For her master's thesis, she studied the songs of superb fairy-wrens with Dr. Diane Colombelli-Negrel (Flinders University, Adelaide).

Nils Riekers

Master alumnus

Nils Riekers is a masters student in Cognitive Science and previously studied Computer Science at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University. He finished his master thesis and is currently working on publishing the tool he developed in the lab.

Franziska Heubach

Master thesis

Franzi is a MSc student in Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen.

Akseli Ilmanen

Lab Rotation

Akseli is a masters student in Neural & Behavioral Sciences. He is with our group only for a lab rotation before studying crows with Felix Moll and Andreas Nieder.

Alumni

Lena Stöckl (technician), now master student at MPI Empirical Aesthetics
Alex Wendt (M.Sc. thesis), now PhD student in Jan Benda lab (Tübingen)
Thomas Eberl (B.Sc. thesis), now M.Sc. student in Munich
Simon Bauerle (B.Sc. thesis), now M.Sc. student in Neurobiology
Yirong Xiong (lab rotation), now starting at Janelia Research Campus/Johns Hopkins University graduate program
Csilla Pataki (M.Sc. student), now at Jörgen Kornfeld lab (MPI Biological Intelligence)
Yuhang Wang (technician), now at Richard Hahnloser lab (ETH Zürich)
Shanqian Ma (technician)