Ritika Mukherji
Postgraduate Student
Sleep, torpor, hibernation, electrophysiology, metabolism, evolution, conservation
Ritika is an MSc+DPhil student in Neuroscience. In her Master's and now DPhil research she investigates the neural and electrophysiological correlates between sleep and torpor. Her DPhil is supervised by Professors Vlad Vyazovskiy, David Dupret and Dr Jose Prius Mengual. She previously worked in the Bajo-Lorenzana group for a Master's rotation in a ferret auditory neuroscience project. Her education in Oxford is supported by the Rhodes and Clarendon Scholarships. During her bachelor's in Zoology at Miranda House, University of Delhi, India, Ritika was part of the team that made the first ever non-invasive electrophysiological recording of sleep in wild marine mammals. She worked remotely with Dr Jessica Kendall-Bar at the University of California, Santa Cruz, analysing brain, heart and movement data from northern elephant seals living in the wild. Ritika also has some experience in in-silico bioinformatics techniques targeted towards tuberculosis drug discovery. Her general academic interests are associated with the study of central and peripheral contributions of the nervous system in the maintenance of sleep and related hypometabolic states in diverse animal species.