Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Benjamin de Bivort is a pioneering behavioral biologist and neuroethologist whose research centers on the mechanisms of individual variation in animal behavior, the effects of environmental stressors on social insects, and the development of automated, high-throughput phenotyping tools. His major contributions lie in revealing how neonicotinoid pesticides disrupt the intricate social fabric of bumblebee colonies. In his landmark 2018 study (290 citations), de Bivort used his own invention—the MAPLE robotic platform—to demonstrate that pesticide exposure impairs nest behavior, social networks, and thermoregulation, providing a mechanistic link between sublethal doses and colony decline. This work has reshaped our understanding of pollinator health and pesticide risk assessment. Beyond bees, de Bivort’s MAPLE system (47 citations) represents a transformative advance in organism-handling robotics, enabling continuous, long-term behavioral screens that were previously impossible. As a professor at Harvard, he is also known for integrating computational ethology with neuroscience, and his lab’s open-source tools are widely adopted. With over 290 citations on his most-cited paper alone, de Bivort’s work stands at the intersection of technology, ecology, and behavior, offering critical insights for conservation and automated science.