Principal Investigator

Byron N Van Nest, PhD

I am a computer scientist-turned-biologist. My early formal training was in artificial intelligence and robotics, but after working as an engineer and then in biotech, I eventually realized that natural intelligence is far more interesting than artificial intelligence. In the last several years, I have been investigating how brains produce behaviour and how different brains produce different behaviour.

I have been studying brains and behaviour in invertebrate species four about 15 years. Most of my work has been with honey bees, but I also occasionally work with other bee species as well as flies, cockroaches, moths, hydra, and nematodes. My motivation is to learn how brains produce behaviour, and I work with brains that are (almost) tractable, as opposed to vertebrates (and especially mammals).

I am usually recruiting new BSc, MSc, and PhD students to join my group. If you have a specific research question in mind already, that’s very exciting. I’d love to talk to you about how we might try to answer your question.

If you’re interested in discussing research opportunities, please contact me at Byron.VanNest@umanitoba.ca.

Staff

  • Brianna Kaldor-Mair, Technician

    Brianna did her BSc- Honours with a focus on Evolution and biodiversity. She did her honors thesis in the Van Nest lab on Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and has also done similar work with bees. Brianna now works as a technician and does support work for the other projects in the lab.

Graduate Students

  • Matthew N Aniagu

    Matthew is a first-year Graduate student in the department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from VSUET Russia in 2021 and worked in the Agro-Biotech Industry prior to joining the Van Nest Lab as an MSc Candidate within the department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba. His research is focused on studying the Behaviours of Honey bees and how they emit constant and modulated electric fields during waggle dance. Outside of academia, he enjoys sports, reading, and outdoor activities.

Undergraduate Students

Lauren Peters
BSc Honours Student

Lauren is an undergraduate honours student in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She is examining the role of the central complex and mushroom bodies in reversal colour learning in honey bees. Her primary interests of study are neuroethology, behavioural ecology, and neurophysiology. She plans to pursue graduate studies after the completion of her degree.

 
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Suseong Lee
BSc Honours Student

Suseong is an undergraduate honours student in the Department of Biological Sciences, currently in the last year of his degree in the evolution and biodiversity theme. He completed his honors thesis on multimodal learning of honey bees in 2021, and he is planning to continue on this project of his in the coming summer as well.

 
 

Alumni

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Tessa Morelli, BSc (Honours)

Tessa was an undergraduate honours research student in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She is passionate about medical sciences and hopes to have a career in healthcare one day. Tessa worked on developing new lipofuscin isolation and detection method in Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.

 

Grace Fedirchuk
BSc Honours

Grace was an undergraduate Honours student in the Department of Biological Sciences following the cell, molecular and developmental biology theme. She plans to pursue graduate studies in the future. Grace completed her honors thesis in 2021, investigating how patriline may influence the aversive learning ability of honey bees. This project uses olfactory conditioning with an aversive shock stimulus to train the sting extension response of bees.