Background and Research
Interests: Development, learning, cognition, animal behavior, psychology, endocrinoology, neuroscience, ornithology, evolution.
I study social effects on vocal learning in songbirds as a model for human speech acquisition. Using behavioral, endocrine, neurobiological, and phylogenetic techniques, I study the cognitive and evolutionary basis of socially guided vocal learning from a comparative perspective.
I am currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Active Learning Initiative at Cornell University, conducting pedagogical research on the effect of active learning practices on information retention in undergraduate psychology classes. I am also continuing my vocal learning research, conducting studies of curiosity-driven learning in human infants and the neural mechanisms of social learning in songbirds.
I studied animal behavior and communication at Williams College, where I obtained a B.A. in Biology in 2010. I went on to study cognition and vocal learning in African Grey Parrots at Brandeis University, and the neural basis of the visual object recognition system in rats at Harvard University.
I received my Ph.D from Cornell University's Psychology Department in May 2019. I am currently seeking post-doctoral and faculty positions.