Gordon Berman, Ph.D.

Our group uses theoretical, computational, and data-driven approaches to gain quantitative insight into entire repertoires of animal behaviors, aiming to make connections to the neurobiology, genetics, and evolutionary histories and that underlie them.  In particular, we are interested in not just the precise physical and physiological mechanisms behind the performance of a single behavior or motion.  Instead, we focus on the intricate interactions that underlie the temporal ordering, control, and evolution of an organism’s movements, attempting to unearth general organizing principles that apply across species.  These studies include building new computational tools for measuring behavioral structures across many time scales, studying the behavioral and neural dynamics of pair bonding in prairie voles (in collaboration with Robert Liu and Larry Young), and using data from optogenetic and targeted genetic introgression screens to probe the neurological control of behavioral commands and the evolution of behavior in fruit flies.