Dr Rachel Parkinson

Rachel Parkinson
BSc, PhD, AFHEA

Lecturer in Computational Ecotoxicology & Neuroethology

School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences
Queen Mary University of London
Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainability
Centre for Brain and Behaviour
ORCID ResearchGate Google Scholar LinkedIn

Research

insect sensory biology, neuroethology, computer vision, large language models, electrophysiology, animal behaviour

Interests

I study insect sensory biology and how environmental stressors such as pesticides, nutritional stress, and temperature extremes alter sensory processing and behaviour. A central focus is understanding how disruption of sensory perception translates into changes in decision-making, foraging, and fitness. This work is supported by the development of AI-enabled, high-throughput tools for behavioural monitoring in the laboratory, enabling sensitive detection of sublethal effects at scale. We also develop Large Language Model pipelines for systematic literature synthesis, improving efficiency, transparency, and reproducibility in ecological and toxicological research.