Author: Nathalie.Stroeymeyt

I’m thrilled to announced that I have just been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to work on ant nest architecture over the next 5 years 🐜🏛️

This funding will (hopefully) allow us to study how ants can use nest architecture to protect themselves against epidemics and other stressors whilst maintaining social cohesion and productivity – and maybe reveal some clever architectural  principles that could inspire smarter human buildings in a distant future…?

Stay tuned for more news on PhD and post-doc opportunities in the next few months!

We are currently advertising a fully-funded PhD studentship to study biological networks in ant nests and slime mould. Please have a look at the PhD advertisement below and get in touch if you are interested in applying!

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/funded-phd-from-biological-to-engineered-networks-investigating-adaptive-strategies-for-optimal-network-design-in-slime-moulds-and-ant-nests/?p176204&fbclid=IwY2xjawIyZJZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHU1zg74JQ9VXKiiExy_uAuCEDl6OqzvRdVtG_w9LDM04m6SCkVKrPw3WrQ_aem_8MOcCqh9AQ5agw1DbycrhA

The Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Bristol is currently offering 5 fully-funded PhD studentships for international students, with one available project to work in our lab and study how temporal activity cycles affect disease transmission dynamics in ant colonies. Prospected starting date: September 2022. See Open Positions for detail and don’t hesitate to contact me for enquiries!

One fully-funded one-year MSc position is available in the lab, with a prospected flexible starting date of Autumn 2022 (see Open Positions for detail).

Do not hesitate to contact me for enquiries!

One PhD position is available in the lab, with a prospected flexible starting date of May 1st 2020 (see Open Positions for detail).

Do not hesitate to contact us for enquiries!

From September 2nd 2019, the ant epidemiology lab will relocate to the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. Stay tuned for more news on open positions!

Disease risk and Immune StratEgies in SociAl InSEcts – DISEASE

In this 5-year project, we will use ant colonies as a model to study disease transmission in groups using an experimental approach. The aim will be to understand how social organisation influences the risk of transmission of disease between individuals, and how this in turn affects their need to invest in immunity. To this end, we will use a variety of methods ranging from automated behavioural tracking to gene expression analysis to understand how ant colonies adjust their disease defences depending on the group’s architectural and social complexity, and on the risk of encountering pathogens.

Two PhD and two post-doc positions will open in spring 2019 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. If you are interested in joining the team, please email your CV and a brief description of your research interests to Nathalie.Stroeymeyt@gmail.com

This project will be funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 funding program.