Damien studies the evolutionary ecology of social and collective behaviour in wild vertebrates. He graduated with degrees in Microelectronic Engineering and Computer Science. His first job was making steel, which was followed by a research position at the CSIRO (Australia) investigating the potential role of bioenergy and biofuels in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Damien joined the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology (EGI) at the University of Oxford as a DPhil student in 2010. His thesis investigated the role of individual decision-making in social structure and collective animal behaviour within and across species. He then spent one and a half years as a postdoctoral researcher working across several projects: one which investigated the spread of innovations and establishment of culture in wild great tits (at the EGI) and a second which examined collective behaviour and group decision-making in wild baboons (at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of California Davis). In 2015, Damien started as a Principal Investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (now Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior) in Konstanz, Germany. In 2018, Damien was part of the team of PIs that was successful in establishing the DFG Excellence Cluster: Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour at the University of Konstanz. In late 2019, Damien was awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant to study the Ecology of Collective Behaviour in his vulturine guineafowl system. In October 2020, Damien started as an Eccellenza Professor at the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies in the University of Zurich, and in 2022 took up an Associate Professorship at the Australian National University (splitting his time between UZH and ANU until 2025). Damien is also an editor at the Journal of Animal Ecology, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and Current Biology. You can find Damien's CV here.

Moreangels is a conservation biologist who is interested in applying science to practical problem solving in the conservation of Africa’s large carnivores and their habitats. Her Masters research looked at the diet and overlap in diet of four large carnivores (African wild dog, Lion, Hyena and Leopard) and the implications for the conservation of the African wild dog. Moreangels went on to do her DPhil with the University of Oxford in the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU). The focus of her doctoral thesis was to assess the effect of resource abundance and distribution, on the ecology and social behaviour of social animals using the example of a social large carnivore, the African lion. She collaborated with Dr Farine on one of her thesis chapters using social network analysis to understand the effect of ecological factors on fine-scale patterns of social structure in African lions. Moreangels joined the Farine Lab as a Research Associate to further her interest in using advanced and innovative technology and analysis in finding ways to protect large carnivores and their habitats as well as improve their co-existence with humans. Find out more about Moreangels’ conservation efforts via her website.

Hanja is a behavioural ecologist exploring the effects of stress on social behaviour, pair-bonding, and group function in zebra finches. She has completed a Joint PhD at University of Hamburg and Macquarie University, where she studied social behavior and information use of free-living zebra finches in the Australian outback. Her research interest is focused on different aspects of social behaviour, such as social information transfer, causes and consequences of maintaining social associations over time, and how environmental factors affect social ties. Hanja is a postdoc in the Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour and in the Farine lab. Here she will develop a range of experiments on captive birds combining differences in early-life experiences with short-term experimental manipulations of individuals, linking individual stress physiology to collective animal behaviour in birds. (webpage)

André graduated in Biology at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and completed a MSc on Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution at the University of Porto (Portugal) where he joined the Sociable Weaver long-term project (South Africa). He continued working on this long-term project during his PhD at the University of Montpellier (France), where he studied the cooperative breeding behaviour of the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius), more specifically the relationship between helping and social associations. In the later stages of his PhD, André became interested in using Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning to automate behavioural data collection in the wild. He is currently a postdoc in the Farine Lab where he is developing a Deep Learning based method to individually recognise great tits (Parus Major) and other small birds from pictures and videos in the wild.

Charlotte is a behavioural ecologist, broadly interested in how animals respond behaviourally and physiologically to changes in their physical and social environment. She did her BSc in Psychology-Zoology at the University of Bristol (2013), followed by a Research Masters (2015) on the territorial behaviour of dwarf mongooses in Limpopo, South Africa. Her PhD research (2018-2022) at Swansea University focussed on the link between affiliative social interactions and physiological stress-levels in chacma baboons in Cape Town, South Africa. For this she leveraged collar-mounted tri-axial accelerometers to identify behaviours and non-invasive hormone sampling. Charlotte joined the Vulturine Guineafowl Research team in its infancy (2016-2017) and helped set up the project at Mpala Research Centre, Kenya. She is now back as a postdoc, using the wealth of tag data that have been collected since she left the project to investigate how individuals respond behaviourally (using accelerometers) and physiologically (using heart-loggers) to different social and environmental contexts.

James earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Louisiana State University before joining the Master’s program in Biology at the University of Konstanz, where he spent 2 years working on the zebra finch project in the Farine lab. During this time James was heavily involved in developing new tracking techniques, which underpinned a number of major projects. James then continued into a PhD working on dispersal in vulturine guineafowl, where he focused on how individuals can overcome the energetic costs and ecological constraints on movement when making large displacements. His primary interests involve understanding how animals acquire information and make decisions. He is now a postdoc working on a number of aspects of the vulturine guineafowl project and setting up new field systems as part of Damien's move to the ANU.

Grace is behavioral ecologist broadly interested in the collective behaviour and ecology of wild social animals. Her research examines the complex decision-making processes within structured social groups, employing advanced techniques like GPS tags and animal tracking telemetry, remote drone mapping of habitats, theoretical modeling, and physiological laboratory analyses. She combines this high-tech and theoretical work with traditional methods, collecting data through behavioural observations in the field. Grace earned her BSc in biological sciences with minors in anthropology and geography from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she worked on diverse research projects, ranging from studying Monarch butterfly population movement to algae for use as biofuel. Grace then studied the behaviour and ecology of mountain gorillas in Rwanda and chacma baboons in South Africa. Grace completed her Masters and PhD in evolutionary anthropology at the University of California, Davis, where she also spent significant time at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany. As a Smithsonian fellow and National Geographic young explorer at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, her doctoral research focused on the collective behaviour of wild white-faced capuchins and black-handed spider monkeys living in the tropical rainforests of Barro Colorado Island. In particular, she investigated how individuals in structured social groups (like these primates) resolve conflicts of interest and decide where to go, when to move, and what to do in their environment. As a postdoc in the Farine Lab, Grace researches how changing ecological conditions affect the dynamics of collective movement and decision-making in animal groups. She is working on extending theoretical models of optimal foraging to social species, and tests these collective foraging models in the wild with groups of vulturine guineafowl.

Salamatu grew up in Northern Nigeria. After completing high school, she obtained a BSc degree in Zoology at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. During her third year she completed a six-month internship in a parasitology and protozoology laboratory at the faculty of Veterinary Medicine, conducting research on the prevalence of parasites in wild birds in Zaria Kaduna State. She then joined the Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, where she completed a masters on the effects of shade availability on water hole use by desert birds. Salamatu is now a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior working on the vulturine guineafowl project with Dr. Damien Farine. She is applying her interest in parasitology to determine how parasites affect individual contributions to collective decisions.

Mina graduated from International Christian University (Japan). For her undergraduate thesis, she worked with Professor Jeff Podos at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she studied (1) the relationships between dominance hierarchy, physical characteristics, and song variables, and (2) whether song variables are used as an honest signals to predict the winners of agonistic interactions in swamp sparrows. She completed her MSc in the lab, looking at how animals respond to changes in the surrounding environment by altering their behaviour, especially in the context of the ontogeny of social networks and group-level traits. She's now doing her PhD on the vulturine guineafowl project, studying how group-level differences in behaviour are maintained within contiguous populations.

Brendah Nyaguthii has recently completed her bachelor of science and MSc in Wildlife Management degree from the University of Eldoret. She has a keen interest in wildlife, which began way back in her childhood, and is particularly interested in ornithological knowledge. She conducted her bachelor’s degree project on the nest site preference of the Great White Pelican in Lake Elementaita , Kenya, and was the team leader of the bird watching initiative at the University of Eldoret Wildlife club. She was then an intern at the national museums of Kenya at the ornithology department where she learnt more on how to handle birds. Brendah completed her MSc thesis and was the field manager on the vulturine guineafowl project at Mpala Research Centre. She’s very enthusiastic and willing to learn more about the ecology of the species. Her strong zeal towards ornithology is evident and she is now pursuing a PhD at the Australian National University working on white-winged choughs.

Yiqing obtained her Bachelor's (2017) and Master's (2023) degrees in Ecology from Sun Yat-sen University in China. For her Masters’ thesis, she made phylogenetic comparative analyses on divorce in birds and studied breeding ecology of white-faced plovers at Paisha Island, China. During her MSc study, she also participated in the project on population dynamics of hair-crested drongos at Dongzhai National Nature Reserve in China. Yiqing has been awarded a 4-year scholarship from the China Scholarship Council and is now pursuing a PhD at the Australian National University. She has great interest in the behavioural ecology of birds and for her PhD she is working on understanding how different types of bird societies—mixed-species flocks, multilevel societies, and cooperative breeding societies—fit together.

Samuele earned his BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Milan (Italy). There he worked in the Movecolab.it supervised by Prof. Diego Rubolini (Univ. Milan) and Dr. Jacopo G. Cecere (ISPRA). During the BSc, he studied how individual Lesser kestrels modulate their foraging behaviour according to their breeding stage. In his MSc, he focused on the kestels’ non-breeding and migratory behaviour, analysing the effect of Sahelian environmental conditions on movement patterns. While doing his MSc, he also conducted a research period at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour (Konstanz), joining Dr. Kamran Safi's lab. On top of that, he also independently worked or collaborated on many other projects, including on species distribution models both with invasive (Red-billed Leiothrix) and native (Stone curlew) species. Finally, he also conducted an extensive review on Mediterranean owls’ diet, looking at within-guild differences in diet. Now, within the Farine lab, he’s pursuing a PhD at the Australian National University, working on the superb fairy-wren prject, looking at the emergence of the multilevel society and its individual-level consequences.

Fran is primarily interested in the behaviour, cognition, communication, and conservation of social animals. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience (2020) and her first Master’s degree in Animal Behaviour (2021) from the University of Sussex, UK. For her Master’s thesis, she studied the behavioural responses of urban herring gulls to human foraging cues. Then, Fran completed a second Master’s degree in Bioacoustics at the Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne (2022), assessing whether African penguin colonies could be remotely monitored and counted using passive acoustic recordings to develop a non-invasive censusing tool for this sensitive, endangered species. After spending six months in South Africa for this project, Fran was given an opportunity to participate in local research projects on the acoustic behaviour of Egyptian geese, dolphins, and baleen whales as well as seal mortality surveys. Now, Fran is a PhD student at the Australian National University, studying the movement and dispersal of African wild dogs with Dr. Damien Farine and WildlifeACT. Specifically, she is using GPS tags to investigate how pack movements respond to changing climatic conditions and whether dispersal events can be predicted from an individual’s movements.    

Kennedy worked as an intern at the Ornithology Section of the National Museums of Kenya. He recently joined the vulturine guineafowl project as an MSc student, through the University of Nairobi, where he will work on understanding how guineafowl budget their time and what they eat.

Tobi finished his BSc in Earth System Sciences at UZH in 2021. He conducted his BSc thesis at the ETHZ Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems where he modelled the potential habitats of the violet copper (Lycaena helle) in the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch (Switzerland) by analyzing ArcGIS Pro spatial data and then performing a generalized linear model with the elaborated habitat parameters using R. His work was listed on the reserve’s webpage and was used to adapt foresting and agricultural methods in areas where the butterfly is present. Tobi is now working on his MSc degree in Earth System Sciences with a minor in Agricultural Ecology. He joined the Farine lab for his Master’s thesis, where he is trying to recognize social behavior of vulturine guineafowls from triaxial accelerometer data using deep learning approaches (convolutional neural networks).

Following a passion for nature and wildlife that started at a young age, Antonia studied biology at the University of Zürich and finished her BSc degree in 2022. During her studies, she was able to gain insights into behavioural research at the Institute of Anthropology, where she studied the connection between sociality and problem-solving skills in common marmosets. She also had the opportunity to participate in a field course in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, which sparked her interest in arid habitats and fascination for African wildlife. Antonia continued studying at the University of Zürich for her MSc and joined the lab in 2023 to conduct her Master’s thesis. She is now studying the role of spatial memory in long-distance movements of Vulturine guineafowl groups and aims to better understand how they perceive and navigate their habitat.

Anne pursued her BSc Wildlife management and conservation at the University of Nairobi (Kenya). She did her attachment at the National Museums of Kenya and conducted her undergraduate thesis on the diversity and abundance of butterflies at the National Museums of Kenya. She has since then been an intern at Ornithology section, zoology department for two years. She acquired expertise in general bird monitoring and surveys which included; Waterfowl census, bird ringing and bird identification through weekly birdwatching. Driven by an unyielding passion for wildlife, Anne is currently furthering her academic pursuits with an Msc in Wildlife Health and Management at the University of Nairobi. Her research focus centers on the dispersal ecology of Vulturine Guineafowl.

Yilin earned a joint BSc from the Australian National University and Shandong University (China) in 2023, with a focus on quantitative biology and bioinformatics. In China, her emphasis was on isolating and identifying marine microorganisms. While at ANU, she participated in research optimizing algorithms for phylogenetic tree models, fostering a strong interest in animal evolution and behaviour. She is now in the Farine lab for her Master’s thesis, where she is trying to unravel prey selection patterns in wild Australian magpies to identify the effects of various group conditions (such as the spatial distribution of prey) on the risk faced by individual prey.

Edward is currently an undergraduate student studying at the Australian National University (Canberra), with a focus in evolutionary, ecological, and organismal biology. He has undertaken multiple research projects as a student, studying ecological interactions and the role of phylogenetic methods in conservation. Edward is currently undertaking his Honours project with the Farine lab, investigating the role of bird calls in the formation of mixed-species flocks.

Wismer graduated with a bachelor degree in Wildlife and Enterprise Management from Egerton University. She then spent time at Crater Lake Sanctuary where she started learning about bird identification. For her undergraduate thesis, she studied the social behavior of llamas at Egerton University. She has since gained much more experience with working on birds as an intern at the National Museums of Kenya Ornithology Section. She has also worked on a project funded by African Bird Club looking at the land cover change and local perception of threatened grassland birds. She has currently working as a field assistant on the vulturine guineafowl project since 2019.

John Wanjala has been working at Mpala Research Centre for over 3yrs, during which time he has collaborated on numerous projects. These include the KLEE (KENYA LONGTERM EXCLOSURE EXPERIMENT) project, where he performed various tasks including collecting data, performing cattle runs, and conducting dung and grass surveys. He later worked with Smithsonian Institution postdoctoral fellows where they used camera traps to observe different wildlife found at different parts of the Smithsonian plots. He has now works with the Vulturine Guineafowl Project, where he contributes to all aspects of the data collection and maintenance of the system.

From an early age, Micah was exposed to the wonders of wildlife that ignited profound curiosity that propelled him on a continuous journey of discovery. This passion led him to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Zoology at Pwani University, where his academic journey unfolded a midst the diverse ecosystems of coastal Kenya. During the undergraduate years, he delved into the intricacies of the natural world, culminating in a research project focused on the Indian House Crow, an invasive species of bird. This project not only honed his research skills but also deepened his understanding of the ecological challenges posed by the invasive species. Currently, he is channeling his enthusiasm for wildlife conservation as a research intern with the Vulturine Guineafowl Project, contributing to the understanding and preservation of these unique birds. Each step of his educational and professional journey has reinforced his commitment to unraveling the mysteries of the animal kingdom and working towards its conservation.

Euniter completed her bachelor of science in Wildlife conservation and Management from the University of Eldoret. Her bachelor’s degree project title was Factors affecting the Distribution and Abundance of Water Birds in Marura Wetland, Uasin Gishu county, Kenya. She was a member of a bird watching initiative at school where she participated in carrying out our birdwatching activities every Saturday mornings around the University. She undertook her internship at Save The Elephants in Tsavo, where she worked with team of experts towards conservation of Elephants and championing community health. Currently she is working as an intern at the Vulturine Guineafowl Project where her passion and interest for birds seems to grow day by day through the interaction she is having with the birds.

Mauricio Cantor is a Brazilian biologist who is interested in behavioural ecology and the ecology of interactions both among species and individuals. His research focusses on the emergence of patterns and strategies in non-human animal societies, mainly using whales and dolphins as models due to their behavioural plasticity and social system complexity—as well as exciting fieldwork challenges. Mauricio joined the Farine lab at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior to develop his postdoctoral research on the evolution of interspecific cooperation, specifically the cooperation between top predators to access a common resource. In using state-of-the-art computational tools and mathematical models to confront unprecedented empirical data on the unique cooperative foraging between wild dolphins and artisanal fishermen from southern Brazil, Mauricio will quantitatively evaluate the direct benefits accrued from both predators aiming to unravel the mechanisms generating such unique cooperation between human and wildlife. Mauricio has also been involved in some spin-off research projects, most of which adopting network thinking to explore processes at the population (e.g. social behaviour among terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates) and community levels (e.g. ecological interactions and interspecific behaviour). Mauricio is now an Assistant Professor at Oregon State University. More on his website.

Neeltje set up the very first steps of the vulturine guineafowl project. She is now a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. She is also an ongoing collaborator on the zebra finch project.

Adriana was a postdoc in the lab from 2016 to 2020, where she conducted a large-scale experiment comprising 14 replicated colonies of zebra finches. She is now an assistant professor at the Universidad Del Rosario in Colombia, and continues to work with the group on analysing the huge zebra finch behavioural dataset she collected.

Gerry was a postdoc in the lab from 2017 to 2018 as a Humboldt Fellow, during which time he worked on analysing a number of experiments he had conducted on vampire bats. He is now an assistant professor at the Ohio State University, and, unsurprisingly, continues to work with vampire bats.

Eli is a behavioral ecologist interested in the ecological and evolutionary forces underlying group living, with a focus on social hierarchies and the role they play in the broader context of the costs and benefits of sociality. Eli received his PhD in 2019 from Michigan State University, where he studied social dynamics in the complex, hierarchical societies of wild spotted hyenas. In his ongoing work, he is pursuing comparative research into basic principles underlying the ubiquity of inequality and social hierarchies across taxa. Eli also continues to work with the Mara Hyena Project to explore the processes that produce long-term patterns in social behavior, demography, and reproduction. In addition to questions about social biology, he is passionate about advancing quantitative methods for analyzing social data, and about the importance of mentorship in academia. Eli joins the lab as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow studying the ontogeny of dominance and other social traits, using vulturine guineafowl and spotted hyenas as systems in which to explore divergent pathways of social development. (webpage)

David is a behavioural ecologist interested in the behavioural adjustments of individuals in responses to environmental changes, especially changes in temperature and water availability. At a broader scale, his aim is to understand how animal behaviour could buffer the local effects of global change and ultimately to predict individuals' activity window under different climate change scenarios. David received his PhD in 2019 from Sorbonne Université in Paris, during which he described and studied thermo-hydroregulation behaviours in the common lizard in response to variable temperature, water presence and moisture conditions. In 2020, David was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship to join the Vulturine Guineafowl Project in the Farine Lab. His project focuses on describing how thermal conditions and overheating risk influences activity patterns, movement decision-making processes and foraging probability of individuals during dry seasons, when resources are scarce and segregated. He will also have a particular interest in highlighting how group-living influences the costs-benefits ratio of behaviours in these high constraints environments. One of his main task has been to map the heat constraints landscape to predict the local overheating risk and shade availability across the day in groups' home ranges. Ultimately, his research aimed to give insights on the consequences of global changes on this population of vulturine guineafowl. David is now an Assistant Professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

Esha is an undergraduate student at the Birla Institute of Science and Technology, Pilani. She is pursuing her MSc(Hons) in Biological Sciences. Esha has been passionate about wildlife from a young age, and is very interested in studying ecological interactions. She has previously worked on a project that studied the interactions between the highly invasive Lantana shrub with humans. She has completed internships at prestigious institutions in India such as the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), and the Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered Species (LaConES). Esha is currently studying the interactions between different families of the white winged choughs at ANU, to complete her Masters thesis.

João is a biologist and holds a Master's degree in Ecology (2021) from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. His main areas of expertise and research include behavioral ecology, social structure, and cetaceans and artisanal fishers behavior. João is particularly interested in studying the fishing dynamics in Laguna, where artisanal fishers fish with the assistance of wild bottlenose dolphins. Currently, he works as an outreach fellow of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program (PELD) of the Laguna and Adjacent Estuarine System (SELA) in Brazil and as a guest researcher in the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour of the University of Konstanz / Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (Germany). Besides that, João's curiosity is fueled by social behavior, evolution, and systemic theory, as well as the people around him. He states that nature is splendid, and as Henry Thoreau once said, "I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees."

Tullio earned his Bachelor's degree in Earth System Science at University of Zurich. He completed his BSc thesis at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems at ETH Zurich, where he analysed changes in the composition of dominant floating vegetation in the Kafue Gorge, Zambia using high resolution satellite imagery. He is currently doing his Master's degree in Quantitative Environmental Science at University of Zurich and joined the Farine Lab for his MSc thesis, where he is testing how landscape features influence the movements of dispersing vulturine guineafowl.

Peng obtained his degree BSc in Biological Sciences from Northwest A&F University (China) in 2014, and his MSc in Ecology from Fudan University (China) in 2017. For his Masters’ thesis, he studied stopover ecology of migratory shorebirds. In 2017, Peng was awarded a 4-year scholarship from the China Scholarship Council for his PhD. His main research interest during his PhD was to investigate the effects of habitat structure on the social organizations, and its consequences for population-level processes (both ecological and evolutionary), in group-living animals. Peng is keen on developing theoretical models inspired by natural systems to address his research questions. He is now honing in these skills as a postdoc at the University of Cambridge.

Tobit Dehnen earned his integrated Master’s degree from the University of Sheffield. For his Master’s project, he worked on home-range ecology in long-tailed tits with Prof. Ben Hatchwell. During his degree he also worked as an intern, studying cultural inheritance, sexual selection and immunity with Dr. Lucy Aplin, Dr. Martin Garlovsky and Prof. Mike Siva-Jothy, respectively. Tobit is now a PhD student at the University of Exeter—co-supervised by Dr. Damien Farine and Dr. Neeltje Boogert—studying the social behaviour of vulturine guineafowl. Specifically, Tobit is investigating how parents can impact offspring dominance rank, and which proximate mechanisms regulate such parental effects.

Alexandre earned his Bachelor's degree in Biology (2015) and his Master's degree in Ecology (2018) from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (Brazil). For his Mater's thesis, he studied how individual traits affect the social structure of bottlenose dolphins that forages cooperatively with artisanal fishers. Alexandre is now a Ph.D. student at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, under the supervision of  Prof. Fabio Daura-Jorge,  Dr. Mauricio Cantor and Dr. Damien Farine. He is investigating how individual variation in dolphins that forage with artisanal fishers influences the benefits accrued in this unique cooperation. Alexandre was granted a joint Brazil-Germany scholarship from CAPES and DAAD to join the Farine Lab at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour to work on the Dolphin-Fishers project. More on his personal website.

Danai earned her undergraduate Biology degree and her MSc from the University of Patras where she worked in the fields of urban avian diversity, bird migration and stopover ecology. In the meanwhile, she assisted as an intern in Germany, Denmark and Greece on several different projects including decision making in nectar feeding bats, passerine migration and breeding ecology, wildlife monitoring and conservation. For her PhD, Danai studied collective decision-making in wild vulturine guineafowl. In particular, she discovered that they form a multilevel society—the first case ever described in birds! Danai is also fascinated by field work and non-invasive experiments combined with the application of novel technology to track and analyse animal behaviour. Danai defended her PhD in June 2021, and continued her work as a postdoc on the vulturine guineafowl project. She is now moving onto a fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, before starting a Marie Curie postdoc on the Shark Bay dolphins, based at Bristol University.

Daiping was a postdoc in the lab from 2019 to 2020 as an IMPRS Early-Bird Postdoctoral Fellow, during which time he worked on analysing data from a huge experiment he conducted spanning 4 distinct colonies over 3 generations. He is currently a postdoc with Prof. Bart Kempenaers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, where he completed his PhD (with Dr. Wolfgang Forstmeier). He is now a group leader at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Christina is a behavioural ecologist interested in behavioural evolution, and how fitness is modulated by the interplay between behaviour and various biotic and abiotic factors. She received her PhD from Stockholm University, Sweden, working with wolves and dogs to answer questions about how behaviour has evolved during domestication—specifically demonstrating how domestication can break behavioural correlations. In 2020, Christina was awarded a three-year postdoctoral fellowship by the Swedish Research Council to come work at the Farine Lab, where she worked on how group-living affects individual physiology and fitness in vulturine guineafowl. For her project she implanted high-resolution ECG tags, which when combined with GPS should help to quantify fine-scale physiological responses to spatial positioning within a social group. Christina is now in the return phase of her fellowhship, working at Lund University.

Francesca was a postdoc in the lab from 2019 to 2020 as part of the return phase of her DFG Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has been working on analysing data from the Wytham Tits to understand how social selection contributes to fitness outcomes across individuals' reproductive lives. She is currently a postdoc at UQAM.

Stephen was the first student to join the Farine Lab, and conducted his PhD from 2016 to 2019 thanks to a fellowship from the DAAD. His thesis was on the behavioural interactions between predators and their prey. He published papers in Nature Ecology & Evolution and Behavioural Ecology. He is currently a postdoc in Cambridge working on inferring behaviour from loggers fitted to penguins.

Lea was a Masters student in the lab from 2016 until 2019. She thought deep and hard about the dimensions that underlie social organisation in mammals, and published her resulting MSc thesis in Ecology & Evolution in 2020. She is currently a PhD student at the German Primate Centre (DPZ) with Prof. Peter Kappeler.

Gustavo was a Masters student in the lab from 2016 until 2018, where he developed much of the techniques we use in the lab to track zebra finches. He is currently a Research Assistant with the Aplin Lab at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. 

Yohan was a Masters student in the lab during 2018, where he analysed patterns of leader-follower behaviour in zebra finches. We hope to publish the amazing results from his work soon! He is currently a Research Assistant in the Kalahari Mole Rat project, and is now working towards his PhD at the CEFE in Montpellier working on French vultures. 

Jana completed her Bachelor's thesis in the lab in 2016-17. She has the distinction of having set up and worked on the very first colony of zebra finches in our institute. She has since finished her MSc, and is now working towards qualifying as a sign-language interpreter for scientists.

Laila completed her Bachelor's thesis in the lab in 2017. She doubled the number of colonies of zebra finches in our institute (from 1 to 2), and conducted the first replicated experiment linking social behaviour to reproductive decisions. This work was foundational for acquiring the research grant that funded the zebra finch project.

Robin completed his Bachelor's thesis in the lab in 2017-18. He worked on the relative trade-offs faced by wintering flocks of songbirds foraging during the winter. Perhaps the biggest impact Robin had on our lab was to start us all with bouldering!

Veronica completed her Bachelor's thesis in the lab in 2018. She worked on the reproductive strategies of zebra finches during the pair-bonding period.

Till completed his Bachelor's thesis in the lab in 2019. He worked on leadership across contexts in the vulturine guineafowl.

Anna worked with Adriana as an assistant on the zebra finch experiments. She is currently completing her MSc at the University of Konstanz.

Monicah graduated from the University of Eldoret with a Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Management. Her interest in birds began in her first year after joining the Birdwatching Initiative Club where she had the opportunity to learn identification of birds. She was a student intern at Meru National Park where she worked with Born Free Foundation and the park research team on the Lion Rover Project to monitor, survey and track lions around the Meru Conservation Areas. Subsequently, she also worked in the Striped Hyena Rehabilitation Project to monitor and track this rare species of hyena among other large carnivores. For her undergraduate project, Monicah conducted her research on the Population Trend and Abundance of the Hinde’s Babbler at Meru National Park and the Adjacent Areas. Currently, she’s working as an intern in the Vulturine Guineafowl Project, and is eager to learn all aspects related to the project, from these birds’ ecology to their social behaviours.

Mary graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources Management from Kisii University, Kenya. She did a certificate in Environmental Impact Assessment and Audit at Egerton University, Kenya. During her third year she completed her attachment at Hell’s Gate National Park where she started learning about bird identification. She has worked with Animals Right Reserve mobile vet department where she learnt on how to handle wildlife. She did her undergraduate project on ecology, diet and movement of Eidolon helvumbats in Kisii County, Kenya. Mary worked as an intern in the Vulturine Guineafowl Project, where she learnt all aspects related to the project—particularly the social behavior and interaction. She is currently doing her MSc on the KLEE project at Mpala.

Janet recently earned her undergraduate degree in BSc in Natural Resources management (Wildlife option) from Karatina University (Kenya). She was an undergraduate student intern at Lake Nakuru National Park and worked in different departments, including Research Tourism, Problematic Animal Control, and Education. For her undergraduate degree she also worked on foraging behaviour of sunbirds. Her passion for ornithology began back when she was a student whereby she led in bird observation under Karatina University Nature Club and participated in Annual bird census under Nature Kenya. She has recently joined study of Vulturine Guineafowl at Mpala Research Center, and is keen to learn the social life and ecology of these birds. 

Elizabeth is an undergraduate student at Kenyatta University pursuing Bachelor of Science in conservation Biology. For her undergraduate she is working on a research project on apiculture adoption and development for economic prosperity in Kitui County. She joined Kenyatta University Birding Club where she started learning about Bird identification and learning various species of Birds. She has since gained much more experience with working on Birds as an attachee at the National Museums of Kenya Ornithology Section. She worked as an intern in the Vulturine Guineafowl Project, where she learnt all aspects regarding the project.

John Ewoi has been working at the Mpala Research Centre for over 10 years and has collaborated on numerous projects. Examples include sampling mosquitos for research into malaria, photographing the distinct flank stripes on Grevy zebra to identify individuals, and trapping spider mice in cliffy habitats. His main area of research assisting, however, has been focussed on the Grant’s gazelles for the last 7 years. This involved collecting behavioural data in the field, ear-tagging gazelles, tracking collared gazelles using telemetry and doing lab-based faecal parasite counts. He joined the Vulturine Guineafowl Project research group at the very start, where his vast experience in the bush was truly indispensable to its success over the following 4 years. 

Sylvester worked as a field assistant on the vulturine guineafowl project from 2016 to 2018. He is associated with the National Museums of Kenya Ornithology Section.