Animal cognition
I am currently studying avian cognition for my PhD in the Animal Cognition Research Group at the University of Alberta. I am very interested in the evolution of cognitive abilities, variation in cognitive abilities both within and between species, how this variation affects fitness, and cognition in ecologically important behaviors. I recently finished a large meta-analysis examining how the environment animals experience influences their cognitive abilities that will hopefully be published soon. I am now conducting experiments examining physical cognition and individual variation in the cognitive abilities in zebra finches- I have recently published one paper on physical cognition and another on individual variation in cognition, with more research to come.
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Social Behavior
I am very interested in the evolution of social systems and social behavior, and explored this during my master's. I studied social behavior in prairie voles for with Nancy Solomon & Brian Keane at Miami University (in Ohio, confusing I know), examining how estrogen receptors influence the monogamous behaviors of prairie voles in an experimental field setting. I also published a comparative study examining traits that influence genetic monogamy across socially monogamous mammals.
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Conservation Behavior
I earned a BS in wildlife management and promote the integration of animal behavior and conservation & management. During my undergraduate I worked in the Wildlife Ecology Lab at Brigham Young University in Utah as a research assistant on projects examining deer fawn survival, pygmy rabbit response to a natural gas pipeline, and sage grouse. I also worked with Lucas Hall examining how bat drinking behaviors are affected by the size of water sources in the desert, and how this in turn affects the local bat community at these desert water sources. We published two papers on these topics. While my most recent research is more behavior and mechanism-focused, I do hope and plan to be involved with conservation research again in the future.
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