AVA Awards Recipients Report - Thomas Cherian - 2022

Tom Troscianko Memorial Award

Tom Troscianko Memorial Award Report 2022
With the generous support of the AVA and ECVP, I attended ECVP 2022 and in the week following the
conference visited two labs along including a visit to a premier primate facility. These have given me
a wider view of the field of visual perception, exposed me to divergent views and presented a view of
the cutting edge in vision research.
I arrived directly to the conference hosted at the Donders Institute (Radboud University, Nijmegen)
with my friend and lab colleague Jhilik. As it so happened, it was my first time presenting my work in
person to the broader vision science community and was a very rewarding experience indeed. I found
many interesting works presented and enjoyed meeting people and talking science. I also met with
Prof. Marius Peelen and discussed work and life with him.

After the conference I embarked on a challenging trip to Giessen to meet with Prof. Roland Fleming.
A last-minute change in rail schedule meant I had to switch 4 trains at very close intervals, missing one
connection in the process. But I did get to travel on one of the most scenic rail journeys I’ve been on
– by the side of the Rhine from Koblenz to Giessen. I was ultimately successful and met with Prof.
Fleming and Henning and Emma from his lab and share a rich discussion on our work. Before the
second leg of my journey, I caught back up with Jhilik in Paris to meet our former colleague Aakash
who gave us a tour of the city. From there we visited Mont Blanc for a chilly ride up the Gondola to
amazing panoramic vistas at the top.
Finally, I went down to port city of Marseille for a trip deep into the French countryside. Prof. Nicolas
Claidière welcomed me from Marseille to another rail journey to visit the Laboratory for Comparative
Cognition at Rousset. We talked about the past, present and future of primate research and the
questions he is currently interested in. At the facility, I was given a tour by Prof. Nicholas, Prof. Joel
Fagot and Anthony, who showed me various species of primates at the facility and the amazing open
world, freely-accessible and thoughtfully designed visual and social behavior testing facility for
baboons. I also work with macaque monkeys for my own PhD work and thus it was an eye-opening
experience on what can be achieved in primate welfare. The breadth of scientific questions that can
and have been examined in the facility were invigorating to say the least.
While, this trip was mainly anchored on scientific goals I also learned much about the cultural gradient
across the Netherlands, through Germany and down across the length of France. Like India, culture
changes as rapidly as the rivers crossed. A true pleasure to experience.
Thomas Cherian
PhD student
Centre for Neuroscience
Indian Institute of Science