• Postdoc: Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Department for Integrative Evolutionary Biology, Tübingen, Germany.

• PhD: MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, Meiosis Research Group, London, UK.

• MSc: Molecular Parasitology and Vector Biology, Universities of Salford, Manchester and Keele (UK)

• BSc: Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Sheffield, UK.

'I grew up in Antalya and Seferihisar (Turkey), where I started an undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics. I then moved to Germany to study my masters degree in Neural and Behavioral Sciences. After working on comparative genomics, developmental and evolutionary neuroscience I came to Bonn to start my PhD on molecular mechanisms of self-recognition and cannibalistic behavior of Pristionchus pacificus. I am interested in the genomic and molecular mechanisms of neural circuits that facilitate innovative behaviours. '

I got my master degree from the european magisterium of genetics (Paris 7) focusing during my internships on meiotic recombination in S. pombe, gut regeneration and mitotic checkpoint in D. melanogaster. I moved to the laboratoire du développement de Villefranche sur mer to do my thesis in the team of Stefania Castagnetti studying the spindle assembly checkpoint in Phallusia mammillata embryos. I am now thrilled to discover nematodes and study prey behaviours in response to predation in this wonderful team.

International Max Planck Research School, PhD Student

I am looking at the flow of information between the pharyngeal nervous system, which controls bacterial feeding and predation, and the larger somatic nervous system, which receives most of the sensory information. Between these two systems, there are only synaptic connections between two pairs of neurons. My goal is to explore the mechanisms that control information compression and selection from the somatic nervous system, and to find out how the compressed signals are meaningfully processed in the pharyngeal nervous system to control feeding.