People

My interests lie along two different paths related to learning and cognition by non-human animals. I am interested in the evolution of complex cognition and the extent to which traits thought of as characteristically human are shared with other species, like chimpanzees. Understanding the evolutionary heritage of human behaviors provides a better understanding of what it means to be human, and what it means to be chimpanzee. Toward this end, I am focusing my postdoctoral research on the topic of empathy in chimpanzees.

The capacity to identify with other individuals has long been thought to separate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, there is a growing body of evidence, both anecdotal and experimental, that some non-human animals display empathy in one of its many forms. I am interested in how the ability of chimpanzees to empathize is associated with other forms of identifying with other individuals, like imitation. A single underlying mechanism for empathy and imitation has been posited (Preston & de Waal 2002), and I hope to test this idea empirically.

My other main interest is applying cognition, learning, and the field of psychology in general to conservation biology. By developing methods for training captive-bred animals on skills necessary for life in the wild, I hope to increase survivorship in captive reintroductions, making them more efficient and more successful. This was the topic of my doctoral dissertation. In the long term, I want to continue to pursue both of these areas as parallel lines of research. In this way I hope to contribute both to our understanding of human nature and to the conservation of biodiversity.