My research examines insect behaviour, and its underlying neural circuitry, in two escape-behaviour systems. In the first system, synaptogenesis between identified neurons in the Drosophila melanogaster CNS is studied using conventional forward genetics; the second, using dsRNAi in a reverse-genetics approach, investigates the determination of sensory-neuron phenotype in a developing epidermal array in the cockroach, Periplaneta americana. 
The ultimate aim is to provide a complete description of each system, from understanding how molecular-genetic information is used to construct circuits of neurons, to how these circuits mediate behaviour.

Recently, and partly prompted by my interest in bee keeping, I have developed an additional research focus in self-organising behaviour of social arthropods, in particular the dynamics of trail-establishment which mediate foraging in tropical Pharaoh’s ants Monomorium pharaonis, and in the common temperate Black Garden ant, Lasius niger and Yellow Meadow ant, Lasius flavus, and co-operative behaviour in the colonial spider, Parawia bistriata.