Research

I spent the summer of 2022 at Gombe National Park conducting a pilot study for my dissertation work. During this time I learned to identify all the chimpanzees of the Kasakela and Mitumba communities and field tested various data collection methods. This pilot study also provided the inspiration for my masters project, in which I examined how food availability constrains male and female grouping patterns, as well as my larger dissertation topic on chimpanzee travel costs and energetics. 

From February 2019 - March 2020 I worked in Uganda on a large comparative project aimed at investigating the evolution and ontogeny of joint attention. For my first seven months on the project, I managed a ten person team that collected behavioral and experimental data on human mother-infant dyads in the villages surrounding the Budongo Conservation Field Station. While in this role, I oversaw all data collection and data management and learned and implemented several human data collection methods including interviews, questionnaires, and experimental tasks. For my last seven months in the field, I worked with the Kanyawara and Ngogo communities of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda collecting both behavioral and experimental data. Here, I learned how to accurately identify and track over 250 chimpanzees within the three different communities, conduct several types of field experiments, and successfully collect observational data on wild chimpanzees. My experiences with the chimpanzees in Uganda solidified my desire to pursue a PhD studying wild chimpanzee behavior. 

From June 2017 - June 2018 I was a field assistant on the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project in Costa Rica. I worked within a team of researchers to observe and record behavioral data on ten groups of wild white-faced capuchin monkeys in the Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve in Costa Rica for Susan Perry’s long term study on wild capuchin behavioral ecology. During this time, I learned how to accurately identify over 200 individual monkeys, collect several forms of observational data including behavioral scans, focal video, focal follows, and all occurrences of aggression, sexual behavior, dyadic and triadic behaviors, and vocalizations. I also learned how to properly collect fecal samples for hormone and genetic analysis. Over the course of my year in Costa Rica, I developed many important field skills including forest navigation, primate tracking, observational data collection methods, primate identification, identifying and distinguishing primate vocalizations, and sample collection. For the second half of my year in the field, I took on the role of field site manager, and after returning to the US, I continued working for the project as a data processor for an additional six months.