Research interests

I am an evolutionary biology interested in social behavior – particularly in how signaling systems evolve when there are evolutionary conflicts of interest between signallers and receivers. Using parent-offspring signalling in birds (begging) as a framework, I investigate how ecology and life history traits affect communication both across and within species. I'm currently a postdoc with Dustin Rubenstein at Columbia University, doing experimental fieldwork with superb starlings.​ ​I use a mixture of comparative analyses, modelling and field data to study the evolution of begging behaviour in birds. 

 ​In my past scientific lives, I was a postdoc with Camilla Hinde at Wageningen University (2017). I did my DPhil with Ashleigh Griffin and Stu West, in the social evolution group in the Department of Zoology at Oxford (2013-17). I also studied chimpanzee social behaviour at Harvard University and capuchin monkeys at Susan Perry’s field site (Lomas Barbudal, Costa Rica).

I am currently a Junior Fellow with the Simons Foundation.