Ari Drummond

Research interests

I’m a perpetually damp and salt-encrusted marine biologist with diverse interests. My PhD research occurs at an interdisciplinary intersection of biological inquiry, including questions regarding perception, cognition and neurophysiology in marine invertebrates. Currently, I spend my days captivated by crustaceans. Dividing my time between tinkering in the lab and trekking through rockpools, I pursue answers to questions relating cognitive processes and behavioural outcomes to ecological and evolutionary theory. Using Pagurids (the ever-charismatic hermit crabs) as model organisms, I seek to expand scientific understandings of the ecological and evolutionary context and relevance of information processing, sensation, awareness—and dare I say, maybe even the BIG QUESTIONS of sentience and consciousness—in animal life.