Gowri Somasekhar

How do we move in our world? How do we successfully navigate, find objects of interest and make sense of everything we see, hear and smell? These are some of the questions I am interested in exploring. I study a very skilled navigator - bats, to understand how they use echolocation for hunting and flying. I specifically study the brain mechanisms that allow the bats to use sonar to successfully detect objects in their environment. Most mammalian brains share similar structures and features, so by studying the bat, I hope to gain a broader understanding of how animals use sensory information to move and function in the world.