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About me

I am a biologist at heart (and formal training), with the mindset of a tinkerer-engineer. I like to study animal behaviour with a combination of experimental, theoretical and technology-driven methods. The field of bat echolocation allows me to do exactly that. In my daily life as a postdoc I watch animals, signal processing, thermal cameras and use lots of Python code to glue them all together.

Work experience

2022 August - present : DFG Walter Benjamin postdoc grant holder - awarded for the grant 'The How and What of Active Sensing Collectives'

2022 March - 2022 June : Young Scholar Fund Bridge Fellowship to continue work started at the CASCB, Uni Konstanz

2021 March - 2022 March : Postdoc grant at the Centre for the Advanced Study Collective Behaviour to develop tracking methods and analyse the Ushichka dataset.

2015-2021 : ​ PhD investigating how echolocating bats are able to cope with acoustically difficult situations. I use a combination of theoretical and experimental approaches to tackle this question. Supervisor: Dr. Holger Goerlitz, Acoustic and Functional Ecology Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen.

Education

2008-2013: ​ BS-MS dual degree in Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram (IISER-TVM)

Masters Thesis in the School of Biology: ​ Task differentiation during prey capture and retreat-mate recognition in the Indian social spider, Stegodyphus sarasinorum (Eresidae). Supervisor: Dr. Hema Somanathan

Minor project in the School of Physics: ​ In silico modelling of auxin driven phyllotaxis. Supervisor: Dr. Anil Shaji

Technical Skills

  • Acoustic and video tracking of animals
  • Design, execution and analysis of bioacoustics and animal behaviour experiments
  • Experience handling animals (ant, spiders, bats) and managing field work
  • Signal and image analysis, digital data acquisition methods
  • Writing readable and reproducible scientific code
  • Coding in order of language proficiency: Python, R, MATLAB (Github page​)
  • Writing and maintaining scientific software packages (itsfm, tacost)

Other competencies

  • Scientific manuscript and grant writing
  • Presentation and communication of scientific results and concepts
  • Can work in independent or collaborative situations
  • Track record of working in interdisciplinary environments
  • Project management along with supervision and training of students
  • Field expedition management and planning

Languages I speak (self-assessed CEFR level)

  • English (C2), German (B1-B2), Kannada (B1), Hindi (B1), Bahasa Indonesia (A2)

Scholarships/grants awarded (selection)

  • CASCB 'Small' Grant (10,000 EUR) to implement an echolocating robot platform to study how bats manage in swarms
  • Early Career Researcher Award for the best talk about the International Bioacoustics Congress held in Sapporo, Japan
  • Medium grant at the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour** : one year postdoc grant
  • August 2019: Google Cloud Platform Research Credits award​ : a $1000 grant that provides access to Google's cloud computing facilities to execute and analyse data from the simulations in Beleyur & Goerlitz 2019.
  • September 2015-August 2019: DAAD PhD scholarship: ​ awarded a scholarship to pursue PhD studies at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewisen by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
  • August 2008-August 2013: KVPY scholarship​ : awarded a scholarship to pursue my BS-MS dual degree by the Government of India.

Publications ( Google Scholar link)

  • 'Calibrated microphone array recordings reveal that a gleaning bat emits low-intensity echolocation calls even in open-space habitat', Lena de Framond, Thejasvi Beleyur, Daniel Lewanzik & Holger R. Goerlitz (2023). Journal of Experimental Biology, 226(18),
  • 'beamshapes: A python package to generate directivity patterns for various sound source models', 2022, Journal of Open Source Software, Thejasvi Beleyur,
  • 'Modelling active sensing reveals echo detection even in large groups of bats', Thejasvi Beleyur, Holger R. Goerlitz, 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  • '​ Robust self-calibration of constant offset time-difference-of-arrival ​ ', Kenneth Batstone , Gabriel Flood, Thejasvi Beleyur , Viktor Larsson , Holger R. Goerlitz , Magnus Oskarsson , Kalle Åström, 2019, conference proceeding at International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
  • '​ Geospatial modelling inside the „Orlova Chuka” cave in Bulgaria' ​ , ​ 2018​ , ​ Asparuh Kamburov, Holger R. Goerlitz, Thejasvi Beleyur, ​ published conference proceedings in ​ International Symposium On Modern Technologies, Education And Professional Practice In Geodesy And Related Fields​ (non-peer-reviewed) (Link to a flythrough video using the data​ )
  • ‘Long-term behavioural consistency in prey capture but not in web maintenance in a social spider ​ ’, Thejasvi Beleyur​ , Divya U. Bellur, Hema Somanathan, 2015, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology
  • ‘​ A mathematical basis for plant patterning derived from physico-chemical phenomena ’, ​Thejasvi Beleyur​ , Abdul Kareem, Anil Shaji, Kalika Prasad, 2013, BioEssays