Research interests

My research focuses on applied human camouflage, a field combining sensory biology, psychology, history, art and digital image processing. My aim is to reconstruct a 'family tree' of camouflage patterns and identify possible phylogenetic signals of history. These signals could act beyond the obvious intention of creating a concealing effect; they could be cultural artefacts such as constraints of tradition or paradoxical patterns enhancing recognition by friendly troops. I am particularly interested in the cultural significance of camouflage patterns and their 'coevolution' since the early 20th century. Working with several hundreds of camouflage patterns, I am using theory influenced by animal protective colouration and pictorial art, models from cultural evolution and comparative methods driven by machine vision.

Biography

I graduated from the University of Bristol in 2011 with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology & Zoology. I did my final year dissertation on gloss perception in the large earth bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). I have decided to stay in Bristol and I am currently doing a PhD investigating the cultural evolution of camouflage uniform patterns supervised by Prof. Innes Cuthill (School of Biological Sciences), Prof. David Bull (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering) and Dr. Gavin Thomas (Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield) and working closely with the Bristol Vision Institute.