Ralph Simon         

 

 

I‘m a biologist (Ph.D.), permanent staff scientist at Nuremberg Zoo (Germany), Research Group Leader of the Behavioral Ecology and Conservation Lab and associate scientist at Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany). I’m interested in the evolutionary, physiological and physical constraints that shape animal orientation, communication and sensory experience. Thereby, I’m not only working on a single stimuli level but aim to consider the full range of sensory channels and their interactions. Only this way is it possible to fully understand an animal’s sensory world. My approach to study these questions is to gain control over the sensory world of animals with state-of-the-art technical setups using biomimetics, robotics and virtual realities. Using this approach, I investigate bat echolocation with a focus on nectar feeding bats and the acoustic adaptations of the plants they pollinate. Apart from fundamental research in the field of sensory ecology, I also carry out research in more applied fields as bio-inspired sonar sensing and nature conservation research, specifically I worked on measures against bat fatalities at wind turbines. At the moment, I’m also involved in the ‘Seeing Voices Project’, where we try to disentangle the role of multimodal cues in vocal learning in birds by using robotic birds as song tutors.

Contact

Ralph Simon

Permanent Staff Scientist

Research Group Leader

Nuremberg Zoo, Behavioral Ecology and Conservation Lab

Am Tiergarten 30

90480 Nuremberg, Germany

e-mail: Ralph.Simon@stadt.nuernberg.de

 

Associate Scientist

Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab

Department Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering

Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Carl-Thiersch-Straße 2b

91052 Erlangen, Germany

orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6083-0394

researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ralph_Simon

twitter: https://twitter.com/RalSimon

 

 

Ralph with Bat

News

Check out our new paper on the development and application of a robotic zebra finch (RoboFinch) out now in Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Bat-plant interactions rule! Check out our new study on traits of bat-pollinated flowers in PLOS Computational Biology:

 

Check out our new study on scalable microphone arrays in Communications Biology:

 

 New study published in Animal Cognition:

Learned to use a nice new tool to analyze all my bat footage: DeepLabCut

 

Our PNAS paper on bioinspired sonar reflectors was featured by Discover Magazine