Welcome to the Podos lab in the Department of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Our group conducts research at the interface of animal behavior and evolutionary biology, with a particular focus on vocal communication in birds.
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Lab News
We welcome to the lab a new post-doctoral scholar, Ju-Hyun Lee, who will be spending 6 months in Amherst. Ju-Hyun is from South Korea, and conducted his MS and PhD degrees at Chonnam National University with Friend-of-the-Lab and former sabbatical visitor Ha-Cheol Sung. Ju-Hyun will carry out several projects and will integrate into the lab's new research line on chipping sparrows. Welcome Ju-Hyun! - Feb 2025
Lab News Archive
-Jeff and Katie's new paper in Science magazine was featured in a "News and Views" commentary in Nature Climate Change, penned by Amanda Ridley and Grace Blackburn. - Dec 2024
- Jeff attended the Animal Behavior Society conference in London Ontario, and gave a presentation entitled "Testing for a trade-off between song amplitude and tempo in one of the world's loudest songbirds". The talk was co-authored by João Menezes, Mario Cohn-Haft, Pedro P. Rizzato, and Flávio Castro. During the meeting Jeff was honored as a newly elected ABS Fellow, along with good friends Jordan Price, Ximena Bernal, Becca Safran, and Eileen Hebets. Very cool to be part of this esteemed cohort! - Jun 2024
- Katie sucessfully defended her PhD! That's Dr. Schroeder to you. Katie bound her thesis together with the following title: "Nestlings and Neurons: Early Learning, Auditory Perception, and Signal Evolution in Songbirds." We'll also take this opportunity to apologize to other patrons of the restaurant where we held the celebration for Katie's successful defense. Anyhow, way to go Katie! - Mar 2024
- Jeff and Vera da Silva presented a third version of their week-long, graduate student seminar on grant writing to a cohort of PhD students from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil. The writing was smooth enough for Jeff to distribute virtual soft serve ice cream cones 🍦🍦- Mar 2024
- Katie presented an invited lecture on her swamp sparrow research at the annual "Birds Across New England" symposium of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, held in Newport. Also speaking at the symposium was Talia Kuras, once a star undergraduate in the lab and now an MS student at UNH, where she works on saltmarsh sparrows - Feb 2024
- Jeff presented a talk at Queens College, CUNY, on Ecological Speciation in Darwin's finches. He was hosted by lab alum post-doc, and now QC Associate Professor of Biology David Lahti. A highlight of the talk for Jeff was getting to speak in Remsen Hall on the QC campus, where his dad had taken Introductory Chemistry 70 years prior, in the fall of 1953 - Oct 2023
- Jeff attended the 2023 Animal Behavior Society conference in Portland Oregon, and presented a talk with Katie as co-author: "Ecological Speciation in Darwin's finches: Ghosts of Finches Future". While at the meeting Jeff also participated as a panelist in the first ever live Animal Behavior Podcast, along with Cornell biologists Swanne Gordon (panelist) and Matthew Zipple (host/ emcee). - July 2023
- One of Katie's dissertation chapters has been accepted for publication in Animal Behaviour: "Early exposure to songs of another subspecies enhances song discrimination in wild sparrow nestlings." Way to go Katie! - June 2023.
- Marcela Cesar Bolegnesi, Eliane Gonçalves e Freitas, and Jeff published, in the Spring 2023 Animal Behavior Society (ABS) newsletter, a reflection on their participation in a new mentoring program run by ABS. You can read it here (scroll down just a bit) - May 2023
- It was a treat to finally attend a live conference again, especially since it was the Animal Behavior Society Conference in Costa Rica! Our lab members presented three talks, two live and one remote. Alexander's talk was called "Modulation of vocal amplitude across social contexts in house wrens"; João spoke on the "Relationship between frequency and amplitude in bird vocalizations"; and Katie's virtual talk was entitled, "Early social experience alters responses to species songs in cross-fostered zebra finch fledglings". - Aug 2022
- We are gearing up for the Animal Behavior Society Conference next month in San José, Costa Rica. Katie, João, and Alexander will all be giving talks on their recent research adventures. - Jun 2022
- Congratulations to Achala Naranayan, who will be joining Peter Kennedy's lab at U. Minnesota in the fall as a doctoral student. Achala was a member of our lab in her first year of college, way back when, and contributed to our swamp sparrow project. - Apr 2022
- Congratulations to Alexander Allison, who will be joining Tim Wright's lab at New Mexico State University this fall, as an MS student. Alexander is a senior undergraduate in the lab, conducting an honors thesis on vocal behavior in house wrens. By accepting this offer, Alexander definitely made the Wright decision - Mar 2022
- João has published a new paper in Ecology Letters, entitled "Flight Hampers the Evolution of Weapons in Birds", as part of a special issue on Avian Functional Traits. João's paper has been featured in this UMass press release. - Feb 2022
- Jeff presented research seminars and met with students, post-docs, and faculty during a virtual visit to the Animal Behavior Graduate Group at the University of California Davis. His visit was sponsored by Andy Sih and Hee Jin Chung. There was brief talk of a virtual post-seminar kareoke event, but unfortunately (fortunately?) that never materialized. - Jan 2022
*** editorial note: pandemic coverage gap proudly sponsored by Jeff's digital incompetence ***
- We welcome to the lab PhD candidate João Menezes! João earned his MS degree at Universidade de São Paulo in 2019, and joined our OEB PhD program in Aug 2020. He finally arrived in Amherst after a year studying remotely -- Aug 2021.
- Katie and her MS research project have been featured in an article in the magazine "Wildlife in North Carolina": Shadows in the marsh: Shedding light on the mysterious king rail -- Oct 2019.
- The September UMass "Life Science Café" featured our very own Amy Strauss, who was interviewed by our very own Katie Schroeder! The event took place at the Nacul Center, and included about 50 members of the local community in attendance. Amy and Katie chatted on the topic of "Sexy Signals: The Biology of Birdsong" -- Sept 2019.
- Congratulations to Katie for earning funding in recent months for her PhD project from three organizations: the American Ornithological Society (Werner and Hilegard Hesse Award), the Wilson Ornithological Soceity (Student Research Grant), and the UMass Bradford Blodget Fund for Ornithological Studies -- Sept 2019.
- Amy and Katie presented posters at the 2019 Animal Behavior conference in Chicago. Amy's poster was entitled "Auditory processing of distance-degraded songs by songbirds: linking mechanisms and behavior", and Katie's poster was entitled "Neural Encoding of Species-Specific Song Discrimination in Nestling Passerines". Katie's attendance at the conference was supported by an ABS Travel Grant -- July 2019.
- Jeff led the Presidential Symposium at the 2019 Animal Behavior conference in Chicago. The symposium featured 8 invited talks that revolved around the theme "Constraints on Animal Mating Displays: Linking Production Mechanisms to Signal Function". The symposium was well-attended and definitely generated a lot of buzz. At the end of the meeting Jeff rotated off of the ABS executive committee, and so now carries on as a "normal" citizen of the society -- July 2019.
- Amy spoke at the American Ornithological Society meeting in Anchorage Alaska. Her talk was on "Developmental experience may contribute to adult female preferences for male mating signals." Nice place for a meeting! -- June 2019.
- Amy presented a seminar to the UMass Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, entitled "Early social context guides song development in males and preference development in females". Amy reports that it was fun to meet other people on campus that think about early experience and developmental mechanisms in behavior. -- March 2019.
- Katie presented a poster on her Master's research at the Bird Song and Animal Communication Meeting at Millbrook NY. Her poster was on "Neighbor-stranger discrimination in a bird with simple, unlearned calls". -- Oct 2018.
- Amy presented a seminar to the Biology department at Whitman College, her alma mater! Her seminar was on "Communicating over distance: perception of long-range acoustic signals by songbirds". -- Sept 2018.
- OK back from sabbatical! A lot of good stuff has happened in a year. I'll see if I can post retroactively as well as currently...
- Editorial note: Jeff will be on sabbatical from Sept 2018 through May 2019. Updates to the website will happen only afterwards. If you're jonesing for lab news, check out Amy and Katie's twitter feeds...
- Jeff and Amy both gave talks at the 2018 Animal Behavior conference in Milwaukee. Amy's talk was entitled "Developmental experience may contribute to female preferences for male mating signals", and Jeff's talk, the society's presidential address, was entitled "Neural Encoding of Species-Specific Song Discrimination in Nestling Passerines" -- July 2018.
- Jeff participated in a workshop at NIMBios in Knoxville Tennesee, on the topic of Bio-Acoustic structure. It was a fun and productive gathering of biologists and computational scientists, and covered a broad range of issues and challenges in the field of bioacoustics. -- June 2018.
- Amy Strauss presented a seminar on her thesis research at Queens College in New York, hosted by lab alum David Lahti. Afterwards Amy had the chance to interact with students from the Lahti lab. Fun was had by all! -- June 2018.
- Jeff has been awarded one of this year's UMass Amherst Distinguished Teaching Awards. Being selected for this award is a tremendous honor, especially on a campus that is so renowned for teaching excellence, dedication, and innovation.
- Dusty Christensen of the Daily Hampshire Gazette wrote an excellent article about an upcoming collabortion between Jeff and his long-time pal and Ornithologist Extraordinairre Mario Cohn-Haft. You can see the article here. (April 2018)
- Congratulations to Achala Narayanan, a 2nd-year undergraduate student in the lab, who will participate in an NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program this summer, at Kansas State University. Amy participated in this same program at KSU many years ago; and so Achala continues to follow in Amy's prodigious footsteps. - Apr 2018
- Amy Strauss presented a seminar on her thesis research at Hampshire College, as part of their School of Cognitive Science's Wednesday Lunch Talks" series. Her talk was entitled "Communication over distance: perception of long-range acoustic signals by songbirds". -- Apr 2018
- We were pleased to host a seminar visit from Marlene Zuk, from University of Minnesota, as part of the Biology Department's Sinauer/ Oxford University Press Distinguished Scientist series. Marlene gave a wonderful talk about the work of her lab group on acoustic communication and evolutionary novelties in Hawaiian field crickets. -- Apr 2018
- Jeff presented a seminar on his research on vocal performance at Cornell's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, hosted by Kerry Shaw. At the start of the seminar, Jeff was goaded by Kerry into reprising his PhD defense circus trick, from 22 year ago, which involved dribbling a basketall with high display performance (the prelude to the trick was videod and tweeted here by Gavin Leighton). Sadly, this is probably the only thing anybody remembers about the seminar. Nevertheless, the trick reprisal was received with general enthusiasm, and it was thus suggested that the listing of said trick on Steve Nowicki's website be upgraded from its current status as "basketball dribbling incident". - Mar 2018
- Jeff has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant, for planned sabbatical research the Brazilian Amazon, on mechanisms of vocal production in songbirds. Read more here. - Mar 2018
- UMass Biologists Cristina Cox Fernandes, Craig Albertson, and Jeff Podos presented back-to-back-to-back research seminars to an audience of ~150 students at the Instituto Federal Pará, Campus Tucuruí, in Brazil. Check out the event poster - Mar 2018
- Amy Strauss has been awarded a dissertation fellowship from the Developmental Science Initiative, worth $10,000. Congratulations to Amy! Check out this announcement from the OEB splash page - Feb 2018
- Former lab undergraduate Zena Casteel has been awarded a Fulbright Student Fellowship, and is currently conducting research on birds in Manaus, Brazil, under the guldance of our friend and colleague Mario Cohn-Haft - Nov 2017
-Jeff presented an invited research seminar at the 25th Dutch Behavior conference in Soesterberg, Netherlands. It was a great opportunity to re-connect with old friends, make new friends, and learn about wonderful research programs in Animal Behavior in the Netherlands and across Europe - Nov 2017
- Tim Wright, Professor of Biology at New Mexico State University, presented a research seminar, in which he described his research on vocal dialects and mechanisms of vocal learning in parrots. Tim is co-author, with Cathy Toft, of the splendid 2015 book "Parrots of the Wild: A Natural History of the World's Most Captivating Birds". - Oct 2017
- Jeff presented a seminar on his research at UMass Dartmouth, hosted by Assistant Professor Jen Koop - Oct 2017
- Jordan Price, Professor and Chair of the Biology department of St. Mary's College of Maryland, presented an OEB seminar, hosted by Amy Strauss. Jordan spoke about his research on sexual dimorphism and the evolution of plumage and song in birds. - Sept 2017
- Jeff presented a seminar on his research at UMass Boston, hosted by Assistant Professor Luis Fernando de León - Sept 2017
- Amy Strauss presented a talk on her research at the American Ornithology conference in East Lansing, MI. Her paper was entitled: Does acoustic adaptation drive song divergence in Galapagos finches? - Aug 2017
- Jeff once again presented a Science Cafe event, in Portuguese, at UNIFESO (Fundaçao Educacional Serra dos Órgãos) in Teresópolis, Brasil. The seminar again focused on Galapagos finches, but this time the presentation was more research-oriented, covering some of the main findings from Jeff and his team. Here is the customary post-event photo, plus an article from UNIFESO's website And here is the coffee mug presented to Jeff by Professor Alfredo Cardoso. Professor Alfredo is the head of the UNIFESO Biology program, and runs the Science Cafe series and other excellent outreach programs, such as the one he discusses here - Aug 2017.
- Jeff spent 2 gull-filled days at the Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore Island, Maine, where he gave an Appledore Rock Talk. While on island Jeff also contributed to the course "Field Animal Behavior", together with gimlet-eyed, sun-drenched course veterans Hal Weeks, Will Kimler, and Holly Nance. - Jun 2017
- Summer research is in full swing in the Podos lab, focusing on the behavior of a cohort of swamp sparrows that were hand-reared in 2016. Members of the team include Amy Strauss, Mina Ogino, HaCheol Sung, Haley Huang, and Achala Naranayan. - June 2017
- Amy Strauss presented a talk at the Animal Behavior Metting in Toronto. Her talk was entitled "Is acoustic signal degradation a reliable cue of distance for open-habitat birds?" As with many titles that pose a question, the answer here seems to be no, at least for her study species, the song sparrow. - June 2017
- Sarah Stanley succssfully presented her honor's thesis, on the topic of "Song Element Sharing and Social Interactions in Song Sparrows". Sarah also presented a poster on her work at the 23rd Annual Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference. Both presentations involved a lot of elemental idea-sharing and social interactions. - May 2017
- May 2017 - Talia Kuras and Steven Stanko presented a poster on their lab research at the UMass Undergraduate Life Science Research Symposium. The poster, entitled "Excited exclamations by baby sparrows: an indication of innate species recognition?", elicited excited exclamations from poster session attendees. - Apr 2017
- Amy Strauss was one of 10 finalists in the inaugural UMass 3-minute thesis competition -- Well done Amy!. - Mar 2017
- We hosted an NSB seminar visit from Vladimir Pravosudov of University of Nevada Reno, who gave a fantastic talk about his lab group's research on evolution and cognition in mountain chickadees. - Mar 2017
- We are pleased to welcome to the lab Ha Cheol Sung, a Professor of Biology at Chonnam National Universtiy, South Korea. Ha Cheol will be spending his sabbatical year in our lab. We will be conducting research together on vocal communication and learning in sparrows. - Jan 2017
- Amy Strauss has been awarded a UMass Graduate School Dissertation Research Grant, to the tune of $1000. - Dec 2016
-- Amy Strauss presented a poster at two conferences this summer: the 2016 Animal Behavior Society meeting, and the VI North American Ornithological Conference. Her poster was entitled "Is acoustic adaptation a driver of song divergence in Darwin's finches?"-- Aug 2016
-- Jeff presetned a talk at the 2016 Animal Behavior Society meeting, entitled "Vocal performance in frogs and birds". The talk was part of a symposium, "New Frontiers in Animal Communication", chaired by Margaret Ptacek and Felix Braden and which honored the retirement of Carl Gerhardt of U. Missouri. At the meeting Jeff also chaired the Allee best student paper symposium, which featured amazing contributions from up-and-coming scientists in our field. Jeff is now the ABS first president elect. -- Aug 2016
-- Zena Casteel was awarded a summer fellowship from the UMass Natural History Collections. Funds will support Zena as she participates in a lab project on song learning in swamp sparrows. Two other key participants in the swamp sparrow project are Isaac Kozukhin, who just graduated from UMass, and Joe Distaula, a rising UMass senior -- May 2016
-- Jeff has joined the editorial board of Advances in the Study of Behavior, a book series published annually since 1965. Advances features in-depth reviews on selected topics in the field of Animal Behavior. -- May 2016
-- Amy Strauss has been awarded a Summer Graduate Research Fellowship, by the UMass Biology Department. -- May 2016
-- Zena Casteel successfully defended her Commonwealth College Honors thesis, based on work she conducted in the lab this academic year: "The Orchard Hill choir: temperature as a potential metabolic constraint of a sexually selected signal in Melospiza melodia". Congratulations to Zena. -- May 2016
-- Congratulations to Sarah Goodwin for successfully defending her thesis, "Song Perception in Communication Networks". That's Dr. Goodwin to you. Sarah's seminar and defense were both stellar, and the winner of Sarah's cartoon contest has now been unveiiled. -- March 2016
-- Our lab hosted an OEB seminar visit from Bernie Lohr, a contemporary of Jeff's from Steve Nowicki's lab at Duke back in the 1990's. Bernie's talk was entitled "The sensory ecology of song in a grassland specialist, the Grasshopper Sparrow". The OEB community got to "feel the Bern"! -- Feb 2016
-- Amy Strauss presented an overview of her work at the 2nd Annual Boston area bird meeting, at Tufts University. Her talk was entitled "Perception of long-range acoustic signals by Melospiza melodia. -- Jan 2016
-- Sarah Goodwin presented a research seminar at Hampshire College, entitled "Studies of Songbirds: From Conservation to Communication". -- Dec 2015
-- The Podos lab hosted an OEB seminar visit from Guillermo Paz-y-miño, co-director of New England Science Public. Guillermo's seminar was entitled "Measuring the Evolution Controversy: The Present and Future of Evolution's Acceptance". The talk was based on a series of survey studies by Guillermo and his collaborator Avelina Espinoza; most of these studies are one click away at the authors' Evolution Literacy website -- Nov 2015.
-- Jeff presented a research seminar at University of Wyoming in Laramie, hosted by Craig Benkman and Jon Prather. A highlight of the visit was meeting with students preparing for a field trip to Galapagos, along with faculty chaperones Craig Benkman and Carlos Martinez del Rio. The visit was a great opporturnity to connect with old friends and to make new ones. -- Oct 2015.
- Jeff talked about evolution, finches, and the Galapagos Islands in a Science Cafe event at the Fundaçao Educacional Serra dos Órgãos in Teresópolis, Brasil. Here is a photo from the event (Aug 2015).
-- Jeff participated in the 2015 joint meeting of the Neotropical Ornithology Congress and the Congresso Brasileiro de Ornitologia in Manaus, Brazil. He gave a plenary talk entitled "Galápagos finches in a web of adaptation." It was an amazing meeting with participants from many countries, and was held at a wonderful venue, the Hotel Tropical on the banks of the Rio Negro -- July 2015.
-- While in Manaus Jeff served on the Master's defense of INPA (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia) student Angélica Nunes, who successfully defended her thesis "Respostas comportamentais do boto-vermelho au turismo de interação na região do Baixo Rio Negro, Amazonas" -- July 2015
-- Jeff attended the 2015 Animal Behavior Society meeting in Anchorage Alaska, where he presented a poster entitled "Feeding behavior in Darwin's finches: niche overlap varies over time and space", co-authored by Luis de León, Tariq Gardezi, Anthony Herrel, and Andrew Hendry. The meeting was a great success and in an amazing venue. At the meeting Jeff served on the judging panel for the Warder Clyde Allee best student paper award. Jeff is now back on the ABS Executive Committee, as 2nd President Elect. -- June 2015
-- Jesse McClure delivered a stellar PhD seminar, to a packed house including family that had travelled in from afar. The cartoon contest winner for Jesse's thesis, announced during the evening's festivities, is now posted -- May 2015
-- Congratulations to Jesse McClure for successfully defending his thesis, "Neural and Behavioral Mechanisms of Impulsive Choice" (co-advised by Heather Richardson). That's Dr. McClure to you. Jesse's public seminar and, more importantly, the unveiling of the cartoon contest winner, will be unveiled after his public seminar and party next week. -- May 2015
-- Amy Strauss has been chosen to receive the 2015 Bradford Blodget Scholorship for Ornithological Studies -- Congratulations Amy! -- April 2015
-- Amy Strauss has been awarded a UMass Natural History Collections Scholarship for her ongoing work on the perception of vocal signals in song sparrows -- Congratulations Amy! -- March 2015
-- Sarah Goodwin presented a research seminar at her alma mater, Colby College, hosted by Cathy Bevier. During her visit Sarah also had the pleasure of presenting a guest lecture in Cathy's Animal Behavior class. The same class in the same room from 11 years prior -- Deja vu all over again! -- Feb 2015
-- Jeff spent 2 exciting weeks in the Galapagos Islands, his 12th research trip to that amazing place. Once again our research was funded by Earthwatch, with Luis Fernando de Leon, Diana Sharpe. and Kiyoko Gotanda at the helm. -- Feb 2015
-- Sarah Goodwin led an OEB Science Cafe event: Neighborhood Watch: Social Eavesdropping in Songbirds -- Feb 2015
-- Jeff and co-editors Duncan Irschick and Mark Briffa have published their book Animal Signaling and Function; An Integrative Approach, Wiley/Blackwell. Here's the UMass news blurb -- Jan 2015
-- Sarah Goodwin presented a research seminar on her dissertation work at Stonehill College, hosted by Bronwyn Bleakley -- Nov 2014
-- Jeff presented a research seminar at University of Nevada in Reno, hosted by doctoral student Carrie Branch. A highlight of his trip was accompanying Vladimir Pravosudov and students to their field site in the Tahoe National Forest, and learning more about their amazing ongoing research on mountain chickadee geographic variation and cognition. -- Oct 2014.
-- Congratulations to Dave Hof for successfully defending his thesis, "Aggressive Signaling in New World Warblers". That's Dr. Hof to you. A caravan of friends and family made the trip down from Dave's hometown, Keene NH, to enjoy Dave's presentation and take part in the festivities. The cartoon contest winner for Dave's thesis is now posted -- Aug 2014
-- Sarah Goodwin and Jeff both presented papers at the Animal Behavior Society meeting in Princeton NJ. Sarah presented her work "Team of Rivals: alliance formation in a territorial songbird is predicted by vocal signal structure", and Jeff presented a paper entitled: "A new measure of vocal performance: frequency excursion" -- Aug 2014
-- Dana Moseley presented a paper at the Society for the Study of Evolution meeting in Raleigh NC. Her talk was entitled: "Responses to song playback vary with the vocal performance of both signal senders and receivers"-- June 2014
-- Sarah Goodwin and Dana Moseley recently presented papers at the joint meeting of the Association for Field Ornithologists and Wilson Ornithological Society. Sarah presented her chipping sparrow work, "Team of Rivals: alliance formation in a territorial songbird is predicted by vocal signal structure," and was awarded the AFO's best graduate student talk. Dana's paper, "Evidence of innate predispositions and learning of female preferences in swamp sparrows", garnered the Wilson Society's best graduate student talk. A Podos lab sweep! -- June 2014
-- Dana Moseley has accepted a Mellon post-doctoral fellowship at the College of William and Mary, where she will conduct work with John Swaddle and Mark Hinders on projects related to avian ecology and acoustics. Congratulations to Dana! -- May 2014
- Jeff provided commentary for a Science Magazine online news article, regarding a recent study by Sarah Knutie and colleagues from U. Utah on fly parasites, insecticides, and Darwin's finches. (April 2014).
-- Sarah Goodwin participated in the NESCent Catalysis meeting “Anthropogenic Sensory Stimuli as Drivers of Evolution: A conceptual synthesis and roadmap for an integrated citizen-science research network.” Yep, Sarah got to travel to Durham NC, where she got to enjoy Jeff's old stomping grounds and also sample North Carolina's famous BBQ with former OEBers Mike Rosario and Patrick Green -- Apr 2014
-- Sarah Goodwin's most recent paper, in Biology Letters and coauthored with Jeff, was featured in a New York Times observatory article by Sindya N. Bhanoo: Wimpy Sparrows Welcome Here -- Mar 2014
-- Jesse McClure has been awarded the Vincent Dethier Award by the UMass Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program. This award is awarded annually to an NSB graduate student to "honor academic performance, research performance and contributions that enhance the quality of the NSB Program". Congratulations to Jesse on this signficant and prestigious honor! -- Feb 2014
- Dave Hof led the latest Science Cafe event, on the topic "Mortal Combat: Bird Song and Territory Defense". He featured his own studies on the second and third most interesting American songbird radiations, chickadees and warblers (Feb 2014).
-- Sarah Goodwin has been awarded a student travel grant, to present her work at the 2014 joint meeting of the Association of Field Ornithologists (AFO) and Wilson Ornithological Society (WOS) in Newport RI. Congratulations to Sarah! -- Feb 2014
-- Jeff just returned from 2 action-packed weeks in the Galapagos Islands, where he and other members of Team Pinzones continue their on-going studies of Darwin's finches. This year we were funded not by NSF or NSERC but by Earthwatch, thanks to the hard work and superb organizational skills of Luis Fernando de Leon and Diana Sharpe. Andrew Hendry and Kiyoko Gotanda have documented and offered reflections on this year's trip here and here. Other members of Team Pinzones on-island with Jeff were grizzled team veterans Jaime Chaves and Joost Raeymeakers, and newcomer Sofia Carvajal. - Feb 2014
-- Sarah Goodwin presented a talk on her chickadee research at the third annual UMass Life Sciences Graduate Research Symposium, and was awarded the prize for best talk. Congratulations to Sarah! - Nov 2013
-- Sarah Goodwin presented a paper during the regional meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB)/ Division of Morphology, at Yale's Peabody Museum. Her talk, entitled "Shift of song frequencies in response to masking tones", comprised 5 minutes of unmasked vocal communication with some musings on biomechanical constraints - Oct 2013
-- Jeff presented a plenary seminar in a symposium entitled "Grand Challenges in Communication in Social Communities", at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany. The symposium was organized by the International Max Planck Research School for Organismal Biology (IMPRS), to celebrate the arrival of the new cohort of graduate students. Jeff's visit was hosted by Henrik Brumm - Sept 2013
-- We are pleased to welcome Amy Strauss to the lab. Amy is a new doctoral student in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) graduate program, and plans to conduct research on the evolution of vocal behavior in songbirds - Aug 2013
-- Congratulations to Dana Moseley for successfully defending her thesis, "Vocal performance in songbirds: Territorial defense and the development of male song and female mating preferences". That's Dr. Moseley to you. Here is a photo from the post-thesis party with Podos lab members past and present: (l to r Dana, Dave Hof, David Lahti, Sarah Goodwin, Sarah Huber, Jesse McClure, and Jeff) - Aug 2013
-- Dana Moseley won the Warder Clyde Allee student paper competition, for her presentation "Learning and innate biases guide the development of femate mating preferences" at the 2013 Animal Behavior Society meeting in Boulder Colorado. Congratulations to Dana on this significant honor and accomplishment! Contributed papers at the ABS meeting were also given by Dave Hof ("Escalation of vocal aggressive signals: a sequential playback study") and Jeff Podos ("Ecological speciation and the magic trait scenario") - Aug 2013
-- Sarah Goodwin has been awarded a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science foundation, for her project "Assessment of signals in communication networks." Congratulations to Sarah!- July 2013
-- Dana Moseley has been awarded the OEB graduate program's Outstanding Teaching Assistant for 2012-3. - June 2013
- Jeff attended and gave the keynote talk at the 2013 meeting of NEBATYC, the New England Biology Association for Two-Year Colleges. The meeting provided a fun and informal opportunity to discuss and share teaching strategies and activities with other biology faculty from nearby colleges (May 2013).
-- Sarah Goodwin has been awarded a UMass Graduate School Dissertation Research Grant, to the tune of $1000. - May 2013
-- Three undergraduate students in Jeff's lab -- Caitlin Descovich O'Hare, Alixandria Flaherty, and Pedro de Siracusa, presented posters at the UMass 2013 Undergraduate Life Science Symposium. Caitlin and Alix's work was sponsored by Dana Moseley, and Pedro's by Dave Hof. Pictured here (l to r) are Dana, Alix, Caitlin, Dave, & Pedro. The posters are now on display outside the lab, come by and check them out! - April 2013
-- Jeff visited David Logue's lab group and the Biology Department at University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez. During the visit Jeff presented a research seminar as part of a UPRM projected funded by the HHMI, "ROLE-MODEL: Undergraduate Science Education Program". Some highlights of the visit included a trip to the Cabo Rojo field site with Logue lab members, and an extended lab meeting in which students presented summaries of research ideas and results. - April 2013
-- Jeff participted in a workshop entitled "Dialectes Humains et Communication Animale" at the GIPSA lab/ Université Stendhal in Grenoble, France. The workshop was organized by Didier Demolin and Jean-Pierre Chevrot, and brought together linguists and animal commuication researchers in search for common ground in the study of vocal variation and dialectology. - Mar 2013
-- The Podos lab welcomes Ana Palmero, a doctoral student from the Canary Islands who will be visiting us for three months. Ana conducts research on evolutionary diversification within a bird species, the spectacled warbler, which ranges from the Mediterranean coastline to the Madeira, Canary Island, and Cape Verde archipelagos. Ana will be studying divergence in morphological, genetic, and vocal characteristics. Her visit is sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Education. - Jan 2013
-- Dave Hof presented a research talk at the second UMass Life Sciences Graduate Research Symposium. He spoke calmly and gently about aggressive vocal signals and combat in black-throated blue warblers. - Nov 2012
-- Jeff gave two seminar talks at Tulane University, in New Orleans LA (yep, Jeff got to go to New Orleans!). The first talk was part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department's seminar series, and was entitled "Galapagos finches and the unfinished business of Charles Darwin". The second talk was given as the Edward Sturtevant Hathaway Lecturer in Natural History, on the topic of "Taking it to the limit: sexual selection and the songs of birds". Jeff's visit was hosted by fellow Nowicki-lab graduate Elizabeth Derryberry and her student Sara Lipshutz. - Nov 2012
- Psychology faculty & collaborator Luke Remage-Healey, UMass graduate student Aaron Stewart, and Jeff led a discussion with artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot about his installation "From Here to Ear", in which the worlds of zebra finches and electric guitars collide. The discussion was held at the UMass Museum of Contemporary Art, and was preceded by a screening of Ariane Michel's short film about Céleste's work, "Les oiseaux de Céleste" - Oct 2012.
-- Much to his surprise, Jeff has been elected as a fellow of the American Ornithologists Union. Apparently the nominating committee was unaware of, among other things, Jeff's embarrassing inability to distinguish grey monjitas (Xolmis cinereus) from chalk-browed mockingbirds (Mimus saturninus). - Sept 2012
-- Dana Moseley presented a research talk ("Female preferences are influenced by early experience and male vocal performance"), and Dave Hof a research poster (""Escalation of aggressive signals in black-throated blue warblers: a sequential playback study") at the North American Ornithological Congress in Vancouver Canada. - Aug 2012.
-- Jeff visited the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil, where he served on the PhD defense committee of Marcos Rossi-Santos, now Dr. Rossi-Santos. While in Natal, Jeff also presented a seminar on Darwin's finches as part of a mini-symposium on Bioacoustics and Behavior, organized by Dr. Flavio Silva. - Aug 2012
-- Jeff spent 5 gull-filled days at Cornell University's Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore Island, Maine, participating as teaching faculty in the course "Field Animal Behavior", together with grizzled course veterans Hal Weeks, Will Kimler, and Holly Nance. - Jun 2012
-- Two UMass undergraduates, Adam Donoghue and Luiza Korobkova, are spending this summer conducting research in the Podos lab, funded by a National Science Foundation "Research Experience for Undergraduates" (REU) supplement to Jeff's current NSF grant. Both are analyzing and quantifying mating displays of blue-black grassquits from our study population in Brasilia, Brazil. - June 2012.
-- Dana Moseley presented an invited paper, "Female preferences are influenced by early experience and male vocal performance," as part of a symposium "Evolution of Communication: A Symposium to Honor R. Haven Wiley", chaired by Marc Naguib and Jordan Price, at the Joint meeting of the Animal Behavior Society and Human Behavior and Evolution Societies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. - June 2012
-- Jeff presented an invited paper, "Evolution of vocal mating signals: Lessons from Neotropical songbirds," as part of a symposium "Sexual Selection in the Neotropics: Celebrating Diversity", chaired by Regina Macedo and Glauco Machado of Brazil, at the Joint meeting of the Animal Behavior Society and Human Behavior and Evolution Societies in Albuquerque, New Mexico - June 2012.
-- Jesse McClure presented a poster "Early adolescent impulsivity predicts late adolescent binge in female rats", describing on his research in Heather Richardson's lab at the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society meeting in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (June 2012). Yep, you did read it right, Jesse got to go to Hawaii! - June 2012
-- Jesse McClure was a featured speaker at the annual conference of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants in Warwick RI. - Apr 2012
-- Dana Moseley presented a research poster, "The effect of vocal performance on male aggressive responses in swamp sparrows (Melospiza georgiana)", at the Sigma Xi Northeast Regional conference at CUNY, Queens NY . Congratulations to Dana for winning the award for best poster! - Apr 2012
-- Jeff presented research seminars at University of Maine in Orono ME (hosted by Brian Olsen), and in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at UMass (hosted by Pablo Visconti). - Apr 2012.
-- Dana Moseley presented a research talk, "Female preferences are influenced by early experience and male vocal performance", at the Society for Integrative Biology's annual meeting in Charleston SC. - Jan 2012
-- Dave Hof presented a research seminar to faculty and students in the Departamento de Zoologia at the Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil. - Dec 2011.
-- The first UMass Life Sciences Graduate Research Symposium was held and the Podos lab swept the awards -- Dana Moseley for best talk, and Jesse McClure for best poster. Congratulations to Dana & Jesse! - Nov 2011.
-- Dana Moseley presented a research seminar to the faculty and students in the Department of Biology at Central Connecticut State University in New Britian CT. - Nov 2011.
-- Jesse McClure presented a poster, "Risk sensitivity as a test of impulsive choice in rats", at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC. - Nov 2011
- Sarah Goodwin, Dana Moseley, and other OEB students run a successful inaugural installment of the Science Cafe, entitled "Out of the Dark: Demystifying Bats" (Oct 2011).
-- Jeff presented research seminars at Randolph Macon College in Ashland VA (hosted by lab alum Sarah Huber), and Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg VA (hosted by Julie Danner). - Oct 2011
- Jeff delived opening lectures for two runs of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", at the Amherst Cinema. This program was shown in the Amherst Cinema's Science on Screen Series, which matches local scientists with films within their areas of expertise, broadly defined. Check out an article on the Science on Screen Series in the Amherst Bulletin, and a review of the event in the Daily Collegian (Sept 2011).
-- Congratulations to Ben Taft for successfully defending his PhD thesis, "The role of dawn song in tree swallows and its place in the diversity of oscine song learning". That's Dr. Taft to you. - Aug 2011
-- Podos lab members presented posters at the Joint meeting of the Animal Behavior Society and the International Ethological Congress in Bloomington Indiana: "The effect of vocal performance on male aggressive responses in swamp sparrows" (Dana Moseley); "Rapid modulation of song frequencies in response to overlapping noise" (Sarah Goodwin); "Within-island song varation in Galapagos finches: discrimination and geographical distance" (Jeff Podos). - July 2011
-- Dave Hof has been awarded a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science foundation, for his project "Aggressive Signaling and Fitness Consequences in a New World Warbler. Congratulations to Dave! - Jun 2011
Male white bellbird (Procnias albus) singing a Type 2 song, Serra do Apiaú, Roraima, Brazil. These are the loudest songs documented to date for any bird species worldwide (see Podos & Cohn-Haft 2019). Credit: Anselmo d'Affonseca
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