Victor is a BBSRC funded DPhil student studying animal cognition and decision-making. He read for a BA in Biological Sciences at Merton College from 2015-18 and then stayed on for a DPhil. For his fourth year Victor moved to St Anne’s to take up a Graduate Development Scholarship in Biology. Victor is passionate about equality, diversity and inclusivity and helped to found the University of Oxford’s BIPOC STEM Network. 

Victor teaches on the first year diversity of life and ecology and evolution courses,  and on the second and third year animal behaviour courses, as well as statistics. He has particular interests in optimality theory, foraging theory and animal intelligence. 

Victor uses classical and operant conditioning paradigms to comparatively investigate curiosity-driven information-seeking behaviour in a range of taxa, and has so far worked with rats, goldfish and honeybees.

Ajuwon, V., Ojeda, A., Murphy, R. A., Monteiro, T., and Kacelnik, A. 2021. Uncertainty avoidance versus conditioned reinforcement: exploring paradoxical choice in rats. bioRxiv2021.08.12.456071. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.12.456071. (Under review)

Ajuwon, V., Cruz, B., Carriço, P., Champalimaud Foundation Scientific Hardware Platform, Kacelnik, A., and Monteiro, T. 2022. GoFish: A low cost, open-source platform for closed-loop behavioural experiments on fish.

bioRxiv2022.04.04.486957. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.04.486957. (Under review)