Mark Roper

Email: mark.roper@qmul.ac.uk

Research interests

I am interested in the cognitive abilities of bess; how they are able to discriminate flowers, navigate on foraging routes using landmarks, form memories, and all this with a brain just 1mm³. My PhD research centres on the bee visual system and how visual information may be preprocessed in the optical ganglia before being passed to the higher brain areas for learning and decision making. To study this work I use a range of simple neuronal models of the bees' brain and design computer simulations to test a range of visual stimuli and compare the simulated results with those of the real bees in the lab.

Educational and employment background

2012 - Present, PhD on Neuroscience and cognitive abilities of bees, The School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London.
1996 - 1999, Bsc. Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence (1:1), University of Essex.

In the twelve years between my undergraduate degree and the start of my PhD I was a commercial software developer. Initially in telecoms sector working for British Telecom / AT&T, later as owner and manager of my own software firm concentrating on retail sales order processing, warehouse management and fulfilment software.

Awards

1999 - New Holland UK prize for best undergraduate 3rd year department result
1998 - Bowden Memorial prize for best undergraduate 2nd year department result