Looking to complete an Honours project, Masters by research or to continue your research journey toward a PhD?
Our school offers many opportunities for students who are interested in continuing their higher education journey.
We have expertise in ecology and conservation, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, behaviour and science communication. Our staff are internationally recognized, run vibrant and well funded research laboratories and have extensive experience in supporting and supervising research students at all levels.
Here are just some of the research topics you could study.
Interestingly, synchronous behaviour may have evolved as a coalition signalling system in humans to indicate the quality of the cooperative relationship. Synchronous behaviour in allied male dolphins may therefore represent convergence in the use of synchrony as an alliance signal. The male dolphins in Shark Bay commonly exhibit synchronous physical behavioural displays, but we have recently discovered the production of synchronous vocalisations – namely 'pops', a threat vocalisation they use to herd females.
How do animals decide when to escape from an approaching predator? We are trying to understand the sensory information animals underlying this decision. The results will tell us how animals measure risk and how they manage to avoid being eaten while still being able to feed and find mates.
Injury to the central nervous system is exacerbated by the progressive secondary degeneration of residual tissue beyond the original injury site. In this project, the student will generate nanoparticle based therapies to deliver combinations of Ca2+ channel inhibitors directly to damaged cells following neurotrauma.