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Ashadee Kay Miller

PhD Candidate, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand

Ashadee Kay Miller is postgraduate student at the University of the Witwatersrand within the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences. She has published 5 peer-reviewed papers that span a range of topics from phenotypic plasticity in Dwarf chameleons to the digestive physiology of Rainbow Skinks. Most recently her work has concentrated on the realm of olfaction, assessing the potential application of African Elephants as TNT-detecting biosensors for life-saving demining operations, as well demonstrating scope for their application as early-disease detectors. By using teams of scent-matching dogs and meerkats, Ash and her team have for the first time in the world demonstrated chemical crypsis in a terrestrial vertebrate. As part of her PhD in 'The Alexander Herp Lab' she now aims to elucidate exactly how this snake species achieves its chemically cryptic status.

Experience

  • –present
    PhD candidate , University of the Witwatersrand