November 2025
What a great news that Honours student Isabella Cameron was named to the 2025 Dean’s List for Academic Excellence at Monash University!
This recognition is awarded to students in the Faculty of Science who rank in the top 10% of their cohort. Bella received this award for her outstanding Honours research on the effects of the pharmaceutical pollutant 17β-trenbolone on freshwater fish, investigating how this androgenic pollutant influences fish behaviour, morphology, and physiology. Go Bella!
August 2025
Life gets busy when you are working hard (or, hardly working?) In the latest news, three ANIM 5502 students have joined us at CEB, UWA. We’ll have an exciting time ahead in the fruit fly lab!
December 2024
- We hosted the 2024 Australasian Evolution Society (AES) Conference at the University of Western Australia premises! The ECR mentor-mentee networking event, like the rest of the conference, was quite successful, and I even got a runner-up prize for my postdoc presentation!
- We went to the field & collected some dung beetles for the first of many times (Thanks to Assoc. Prof. Joe Tomkins). Who knew the beetles would be so pretty! *_*
- Also, winning a lab cooking competition should be added to the CV, right?
November 2024
- Honours students Bella and James (co-supervised with Prof Bob Wong, Monash Uni) did a fantastic job submitting their theses! Woohoo! 🎉
- Thanks to Bob, we had a writing retreat/staycation in beautiful Daylesford (a rural part of Victoria famous for its natural mineral springs).
- Saying goodbye is always hard, but I moved interstate from Monash Uni to the University of Western Australia to take up an exciting fellowship position. Perth is pretty, though!
October 2024
- Honours students Bella and James (co-supervised with Prof Bob Wong) gave stellar presentations on their research findings.
- I presented my research on the effect of long-term pollution on fish at the International Society of Behavioural Ecology (ISBE) 2024 Congress.
- I also organised an Early Career Researcher panel discussion at the ISBE 2024 Congress as part of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.
September 2024
- I presented my research on the effect of long-term pollution on fish at the Monash University Faculty of Science ECN Symposium, where I received a People’s Choice Poster Award.
- I gave a guest lecture on Monash’s third-year course, BIO3052 Animal Social Behaviour.
August 2024
- Our paper on the long-term effects of widespread pharmaceutical pollution on trade-offs between behavioural, life history, and reproductive traits in fish is finally published! This study received attention from some media, including The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, US ABC News Network, Cosmos Magazine by CSIRO, Yahoo News, ABC Radio (SA, QLD, and Sydney/NSW), and Triple M National Radio.
- It was great to host Dr David Shuker from the University of St Andrews as a Monash Biological Science School Seminar Speaker on Sexual Selection in non-model organisms.
May 2024
- Had a fantastic time attending the workshop on Sexual Selection in a Changing World in Erice, Sicily. Great food in an amazing city was a bonus!
Upama Aich 