Karan Odom

RESEARCH FOCUS

- Core theme: Behavioral ecology and evolution of birds, with a special focus on female birdsong, sex differences, and the neuroendocrine mechanisms that regulate vocal behavior and breeding activities. 

- Study systems: Wild songbirds in Northern California, including wrens monitored through a network of nest boxes across multiple forested field sites and preserves

- Field research: Early-morning behavioral observations, bioacoustic recordings, nest checks across 100+ boxes, capture and handling via mist netting, color banding, and collection of morphometrics and small-volume blood samples for downstream analyses. 

- Neuroendocrine focus: Quantifying circulating hormones across the breeding season to understand how endocrine dynamics map onto behavior. Although testosterone is a classic driver of male song, the lab explores a broader panel for females, including estrogens, thyroid hormones, cortisol, precursors, and metabolites. 

- Analytical advances: Development and validation of targeted LC-MS/MS workflows to simultaneously measure multiple hormones from minute plasma volumes, using deuterated internal standards to improve sensitivity, specificity, and quantitative accuracy compared to traditional immunoassays. 

- Bioacoustics and behavior: Spectrogram-based vocal analysis to characterize song structure, usage, and seasonal dynamics, linking acoustic phenotypes with ecological context and endocrine state. 

- Sex differences and evolution: Testing when and why females sing, how selection acts on female vocal behaviors, and what proximate hormonal pathways enable or constrain these traits, contributing to broader questions of behavioral evolution and sexual selection. 

- Current trajectory: Building campus capacity for hormone quantification by mass spectrometry and integrating field ecology, bioacoustics, and neuroendocrinology to deliver multi-scale insight into the regulation and function of female song. 

- Training and mentoring: One-on-one field training in banding and handling, data collection, and method development; collaboration via lab Slack channels for nest-check coordination and data entry.