Sarah Skeels

Research

Research Interests:

I am a Zoologist broadly interested in understanding perception and decision-making in animals. I am currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the project ‘Addressing key evidence gaps in the science of insect sentience’ funded by Open Philanthropy, supervised by Prof Lars Chittka (QMUL) and Prof Jonathan Birch (LSE). Previously, I completed my DPhil and a Career Development Fellowship (both funded by the BBSRC) at the University of Oxford, where I studied sensory-motor integration in weakly electric fish. I investigated how one species of weakly electric fish, Gnathonemus petersii, use body movements to shape what they perceive with their active electric sense. Before this, I completed my master’s at the University of Bristol, where I investigated electrosensing in bumble bees.

Publications

• Skeels, S., von der Emde, G., & Burt de Perera, T. (2023b). Weakly electric fish use self-generated motion to discriminate object shape. Animal Behaviour. 205, 47-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.08.002
• Skeels, S., von der Emde, G., & Burt de Perera, T. (2023a). Mormyrid fish as models for investigating sensory-motor integration: A behavioural perspective. Journal of Zoology. 319, 243-253. https://doi.org/10.1111/jzo.13046