Daniel Moshe Knebel

Daniel Knebel earned his PhD in neuroscience in 2018 (Tel Aviv University), with a dissertation on the neuromotor system of insects. He continued as a postdoctoral researcher in mathematics and computer science (Bar-Ilan University) and at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Jena), combining empirical work with computational modeling of insects’ social behavior. In parallel to his education and studies in the natural sciences, Daniel participated in various courses and seminars in history and philosophy. His hands-on experience in neuroscience led him to ask how the emergence of neuroscience as a scientific discipline shaped the modern study of the nervous system. To address this question, Daniel joined Katja Krause’s research group “Experience in the Premodern Sciences of Soul and Body ca. 800–1650.” Despite exceeding that focal period, he uses the research group’s historical approach to investigate how broad disciplinary changes within the sciences shaped the ways that scientists perceived and manipulated the neuronal specimens they studied. To this end, Daniel investigates how and under what scientific circumstances the traditional study of neuromotor control, specifically the concept of the reflex—instrumental for biology, psychology, and philosophy—changed in the last century.

Publications

• Knebel D., Ayali A., Guershon M., Ariel G. (2019) Intra- vs. inter-group variance in collective behavior. Science Advances eaav0695.
• Knebel D., Rillich J., Ayali A., Pflüger H.-J., Rigosi E. (2018) Ex vivo recordings reveal desert locust forelimb control is asymmetric. Current Biology 28(22), R1290-R1291.
• Knebel D., Ayali A., Pflüger H.-J., and Rillich J. (2017) Rigidity and Flexibility: The Central Basis of Inter-Leg Coordination in the Locust. Frontiers in Neural Circuits 10, 112.
• Ariel G., Ayali A., Be'er A., and Knebel D. (2022) Variability and heterogeneity in natural swarms: experiments and modeling. Active Particles, Vol. 3, Advances in Theory, Models, and Applications. Bellomo, N., Degond, P. and Tadmor, E. (Eds.), Birkhauser-Springer.
• Knebel D., Rigosi E. (2021) Temporal and structural neural asymmetries in insects. Current Opinion in Insect Science 48, 72-78