Aurore Avarguès-Weber facts for kids

Aurore Avarguès-Weber is a French scientist born in 1983. She studies how animals think and behave. Her main focus is on bees. She works at the Centre de Recherche sur la Cognition Animale in Toulouse, France.

In 2015, she received a special award called the International Rising Talent Fellowship. This award was for her research into how social insects, like bees, see and understand things. She also received a Bronze Medal from the CNRS in 2019.

Early Life and Education

Aurore Avarguès-Weber grew up in Givry, Saône-et-Loire, France. After finishing high school, she went to a special preparatory class in Lyon. There, she discovered a strong interest in biology and how living things work.

She later studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan. This is a very good school in France.

Studying Bees

Aurore Avarguès-Weber earned her PhD in 2010. She did her research with Professor Martin Giurfa at the Research Centre for Animal Cognition (CRCA) in Toulouse.

After her PhD, she worked as a researcher in two different places. One was with Professor Lars Chittka at Queen Mary University of London. The other was with Jean-Christophe Sandoz in Gif-sur-Yvette.

She now works with the EXPLAIN team at the CRCA. This team studies how insects learn and change their behavior. Even though she first wanted to study orangutans, she has been focusing on bees since 2007.

Amazing Bee Discoveries

Dr. Avarguès-Weber's research has shown how smart bees really are. Her work helps us understand more about animal brains. It also helps with computer science and facial recognition technology.

Bees and Math

Her lab has made some amazing discoveries about bees. They found that bees can understand numbers. Bees can even do simple math, like adding and subtracting! They also understand the idea of zero.

Bees and Faces

Her research also showed that bees can recognize patterns that look like faces. This is very interesting because bees have tiny brains. She is now creating a virtual reality system to test even more complex abilities of bees.

Awards and Achievements

Dr. Avarguès-Weber has received important awards for her scientific work.

In 2015, she was given the International Rising Talent Fellowship. This was part of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards. She also received 20,000 euros to help with her research.

In 2019, she received the Bronze Medal from the CNRS. The CNRS is a big research organization in France. This medal is given to researchers for their important early work. Dr. Avarguès-Weber was recognized for her discoveries about how bees think.

Personal Life

Aurore Avarguès-Weber has four children.