Welcome to our lab!
Our research integrates perspectives from evolutionary ecology, animal behavior, and physiology in an effort to understand how natural selection and current conditions shape decision-making in mammals. We combine naturalistic observations on free-living mammals with field experiments, genetic and endocrine analyses, and social network statistics to test the predictions of evolutionary theory.
Our research integrates perspectives from evolutionary ecology, animal behavior, and physiology in an effort to understand how natural selection and current conditions shape decision-making in mammals. We combine naturalistic observations on free-living mammals with field experiments, genetic and endocrine analyses, and social network statistics to test the predictions of evolutionary theory.
Learn more...
- New articles: Social network personalities consistent across time and ecological contexts, Female leadership in mammalian societies, Mechanisms of cooperative breeding, Comparative social evolution in mammals, Oxytocin experiments, and Long-term studies on carnivores
- Excellence in Teaching Awards from the Animal Behavior Society and Phi Beta Kappa
- Chelsea Ortiz won herself an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue her Ph.D. in Animal Behavior Group at UC-Davis to study behavioral syndromes of California ground squirrels in collaboration with Andy Sih
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B paper, Split between two worlds, covered by Jeanne Herrera in story, "Mills College Biology Professor Coauthors Research on the Social Personalities of California Ground Squirrels" and more media coverage by iNaturalist (California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA), Daily Bruin (UCLA) Weny News (Horseheads, New York), Crossroads Today ABC News Center (Victoria, Texas), NewsOn6 (Tulsa, Oklahoma), NBC29 (Charlottesville, Virginia), Fox40 (Binghamton, New York).
- Recent seminars at UCLA's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Seminar, University of California Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology Symposium
- National Science Foundation funded co-mentoring w/ Andy Sih of: Bianna Lomeli '17 and Julia Spencer '18.
- Jill Barrett Research Program supports Women in Science: Riana Hunter, Julia Spencer, Erika Pendleton, Imani Smith, Christina Lilly, Bianna Lomeli, Kianna Von Maydell, Erika Reina, and Maia Ziaee.
