I am a Neuroethologist - studying the neural basis of natural animal behaviour –with particular interest in animal navigation, homing and the ecology of information processing. These topics are part of a major world-wide research effort, linking research in Behavioural Ecology, Neuroethology, Sensory Physiology, Evolutionary Biology, Machine Vision and Robotics. The design and evolution of visual systems, including neural computation strategies, can only be understood in the natural context in which animals operate. We still know too little about the image processing problems that animals face under natural and biologically relevant conditions, in order to explain the staggering diversity of visual systems on earth. At the same time, machine vision and robotics research is increasingly confronted with vision under real-life conditions. There is thus a common interest in understanding what makes biological vision so successful, flexible and robust.
