Rana El Khoury

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Rana El Khoury is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of biomimetic robotics and behavioral neuroscience, with a primary focus on using robotic fish to study social and cognitive behaviors in zebrafish. Her most notable contribution is demonstrating that robotic conspecifics can serve as effective tools to investigate complex learning processes—specifically, whether zebrafish can learn to open doors by observing robotic fish. This work, published in 2019, has garnered 4 citations and opens new avenues for understanding social learning in animal models. Additionally, her 2018 study introduced a novel robotics-based platform to simulate predator-prey interactions, offering unprecedented control and reproducibility in behavioral experiments. By leveraging highly controllable robotic stimuli, El Khoury addresses fundamental gaps in our understanding of zebrafish cognition and social behavior. Her innovative approach bridges engineering and ethology, providing a scalable, customizable methodology for future studies. Though early in her career, her work has already influenced the emerging field of interactive animal-robot experiments, with potential applications in neuroscience, ecology, and robotics. El Khoury’s research exemplifies how technology can unlock new dimensions in the study of animal behavior.