Welcome to the Mehta Lab at UC Santa Cruz
Welcome to the Mehta Lab at UCSC. We use functional morphology, physiology, and anatomical approaches to study animal behavior through an evolutionary and ecological lens. While I find most behaviors interesting, I have a specific love for feeding behaviors and feeding is convenient- we all have to feed to survive. Not to mention, some animals have evolved incredibly exciting and even nightmare- evoking prey capture strategies that beg anyone to ask, “what!, where?, why? and how?
We welcome enthusiastic and thoughtful undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers to join our team. We are particularly interested in highly-motivated and relatively independent students who have a curiosity for morphological, physiological, and behavioral diversity. Whenever possible, graduate students are highly encouraged to develop their own projects and find their own model systems to study. As a result, I have had the privilege of learning about feeding in a broad variety of taxa from octopuses, fishes, snakes, to aquatic mammals- oh my!