Rate My Professor Mike Colombo

Professor Mike Colombo is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago, where he joined in 1992 and served as Head of Department from 2014 to 2019. He holds an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and psychology from the University of Colorado and a PhD from Rutgers University obtained in 1989, with a focus on comparative animal cognition and neuroscience. After his doctorate, Colombo was awarded an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship to investigate neural mechanisms of visual processing in monkeys at Princeton University. With over 30 years of university teaching experience at both undergraduate and graduate levels, he teaches courses including PSYC111: Sensation, Perception and Neuropsychology, PSYC310: Research Project, and PSYC319: Comparative Cognition. Colombo has received the University of Otago Excellence in Teaching Award along with numerous other awards for teaching and supervision.

Colombo's research examines the neural mechanisms of visual processing, learning, and memory, as well as comparative animal cognition. He uses electrophysiological techniques to analyze neuronal activity related to memory coding, reward, and visual processing, and studies the hippocampus's role in detecting contingencies and spatial navigation. His work on avian cognition, particularly in pigeons, demonstrates cognitive abilities comparable to primates in tasks such as numerical competence and serial order representation when appropriately designed. Supported by grants from the Marsden Foundation, Neurological Foundation of New Zealand, Health Research Council, and Otago Research Grants, Colombo has authored over 100 journal articles and co-authored the book 'The Development of Implicit and Explicit Memory' (2001) with Carolyn Rovee-Collier and Harlene Hayne. Key publications include 'Is the avian hippocampus a functional homologue of the mammalian hippocampus?' (2000), 'Pigeons on par with primates in numerical competence' (2011), 'Neural correlates of executive control in the avian brain' (2005), and recent papers such as 'Beyond the mark: Signatures of self-recognition in fish' (2024) and 'Global and local processing in the pigeon's visual system' (2022).