Hi there! My name is Dinesh Natesan, and I am currently a postdoc at UCSB.

I finished my joint PhD in Neuroscience and Computer Science from National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore and KTH Royal institute of technology, Stockholm, respectively. I am generally interested in the interface of animal behavior, the underlying computations that produce behavior and, more recently, the neural circuits that implement these computations.

During my PhD, I investigated these aspects using two animals, the oleander hawkmoth Daphnis nerii, and the fruit/vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster. I studied how the antennal positioning reflex in hawkmoths is tuned in an airflow-dependent manner using experiments and computation. I also worked on how flying fruit flies track odor and localize food sources in varied visual and airflow environments.

More generally, I often think about how we can better understand neural circuits and the emergence of behavior using the shortest path, and recently have been dabbling in the philosophy of science.