UCLA biologist works to create a new field, merging the sciences and architecture

How do spaces affect us, and animals? UCLA biologist Noa Pinter-Wollman had the idea that we can learn from the way animals use space, and, with several colleagues from the U.S., England and France, she is launching an effort to create a new field of study. Her goals are ambitious.Does she hope her research will lead to better homes, better offices and better communities?“Of course,” said Pinter-Wollman, an expert on ants, spiders and how environments influence collective behavior. “Who doesn’t? I want to know how collective behaviors emerge; what causes them, and how they can be improved.”It all started when Pinter-Wollman was studying harvester ants in Southern California calledVeromessor andrei; the ants live in nests and the same colony, which contain thousands of ants, can move between different nest sites, more than 50 feet away.“A colony behaves differently in different nest sites,” Pinter-Wollman said. “The environment definitely influences collective behavior. That started my whole interest in this area.”Shortly after conducting this study, Pinter-Wollman attended aconference in 2014— sponsored by the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, a program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine — that brought together scientists who study collective behavior in cells, animals and humans. She met scholars in an academic field of which she was unaware, called environmental psychology. She also met a social scientist from the...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news