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 signalers and receivers. Using parent-offspring signaling in birds (begging) as a framework, I investigate how ecology and life history traits affect communication both across and within species. I'm currently working with Hans Hofmann and Mark Kirkpatrick at UT Austin, and establishing a field site with European starlings.​ ​

 ​In my past scientific lives, I was a Junior Fellow with the Simons Foundation, with Dustin Rubenstein at Columbia University doing experimental fieldwork with superb starlings. 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 Stengl-Wyer Scholar at UT Austin.