Thejasvi Beleyur

Dr. Thejasvi Beleyur is a Group Leader of the Active Sensing Collectives Lab at the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, and holds an affiliated position at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. She also serves as IMPRS Faculty, contributing to interdisciplinary research at the intersection of animal behavior, sensory biology, and collective systems.

• Current: Group Leader, Active Sensing Collectives Lab (2025-present)
• Previous: Postdoc at Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (2021-2025)
• PhD: Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (2015-2021)
• Education: BS-MS in Biological Sciences, IISER-TVM (2008-2013)

Dr. Beleyur's research program investigates how active-sensing agents like echolocating bats navigate complex sensory environments when operating in groups. Her work combines field observations, computational modeling, and swarm robotics to understand the sensorimotor strategies animals employ in information-limited settings. She has pioneered the development of the Ushichka dataset—a multichannel audio-video system for recording echolocating bats in natural habitats—which provides unprecedented insights into how bats modify flight and echolocation behaviors as group sizes change.

Her publication record reveals a consistent trajectory examining sensory challenges in collective animal systems, with emphasis on echolocating bats. The research spans experimental field work, computational modeling, and methodological innovations in acoustic and video tracking. Recent work has expanded into developing computational tools like the beamshapes Python package for sound source modeling and exploring robot platforms to simulate bat collective behavior.

• Carl-Zeiss Nexus grant for inter-disciplinary research (2025)
• DFG Walter Benjamin postdoc grant (2021-2023)
• Early Career Researcher Award at International Bioacoustics Congress
• Google Cloud Platform Research Credits award ($1000)
• DAAD-GSSP Stipend for doctoral studies (2015-2020)

Dr. Beleyur actively mentors students in her lab, currently supervising PhD student Frithjof and Master's student Aditya, following the completion of Gabriele's Master's thesis on the active-sensing Ro-BAT platform. Her research program is supported by competitive grants including the Carl-Zeiss Nexus grant and previously the DFG Walter Benjamin fellowship, which funded her work on 'The How and What of Active Sensing Collectives.'

The Active Sensing Collectives Lab brings together an interdisciplinary team working at the interface of sensory biology, robotics, and collective behavior. The lab develops novel computational methods for analyzing complex datasets from multi-sensor field recordings, with emphasis on creating tools for long-term community use. Current projects include characterizing echolocating groups in the field and studying sensorimotor strategies using computational modeling.