Associate Professor Ajay Mathuru received his Bachelor’ degree in Science (Genetics, Microbiology and Chemistry) from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India in 1996. In 1998, he was awarded the university gold medal and a Master’s degree in Life Sciences (Plant Sciences) at the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.

During his Master’s programme, Assoc Prof Mathuru spent a summer studying olfactory conditioning and odour-evoked behaviours in Drosophila melanogaster larvae in the late Professor Obaid Siddiqi’s laboratory in Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India which culminated in a lifelong interest in neuroscience. During his PhD in neuroscience at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India, he studied the coupling of biophysical and biochemical agents at the hippocampal synapses with Upi Bhalla.

He developed an interest in addressing neuroethological questions using zebrafish and moved to Singapore in 2006, to work with Suresh Jesuthasan, first at Temasek Lifesciences Labs, then at Duke-NUS/A*STAR as a Research Fellow. Prior to joining Yale-NUS, he worked as a Senior Research Fellow at IMCB, A*STAR, where he continued to study neural mechanisms underlying natural behaviour.