About me
Journey - From Austria to Australia
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I started my scientific education at the Karl Franzens University in Graz, Styria (Austria) where I received my Bachelor degree in Ethology. My undergraduate research focused on thermoregulation in ants analysing temperature gradients of anthills and ant trails. During my undergraduate degree, I had the opportunity to work with many different species including honey bees, Japanese macaques and electric fish among others.
2013
My interests in behaviour and cognition lead me to leave Graz behind and move to Vienna, where I finished my Master degree in 2013 studying cognition in Goffin's cockatoos. Originally I wanted to study bioacoustics and acoustical communication in frogs, however, somehow I ended up studying cognition instead.
My first study looked into Piagetian object permanence utilising Piagets original six stage methodology. With a magnetic plate, we hid a piece of cashew under one of three cups. In later stages these cups changed position, which made paying attention crucial to finding the reward.
My masters-thesis focused on the influence of the social relationship between an observer and a demonstrator during a none food-rewarded object choice task. Subjects watched a demonstrator choose one of four objects. Afterwards, without the demonstrator present, the subject was allowed to choose one object itself.
Attention in animal has been a theme during my Master research. Between 2016 to 2019 I did my PhD at Macquarie University in Sydney, NSW; Australia. My research shifted a little bit focusing on behavioural flexibility and learning in lizards of the Egernia group, a group of species with different degrees of sociality. Attention plays an important role during tests of behavioural flexibility, especially during reversal learning and set-shifting, two methods I used to test these lizards learning ability. During my 3.5 years at Macquarie University I also studied response inhibition and spontaneous quantity discrimination in lizards.
2019
Recently, my research has increasingly focused on how ecology and life history shape learning and behaviour. However, I am very interested in broadening my skills even further. I want to incorporate more behaviour, ecology and morpholgy and physiology into my research to better understand differences in cognitive ability between individuals as well as between species.
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2021
​Onward to Switzerland!
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After graduating from Macquarie University in September 2019, I have started my first Postdoc at the University of Bern in Switzerland under the guidance of Dr. Eva Ringler. We will explore the cognitive abilities of amphibians including poison frogs. My main focus will be on studying the link between behaviour, cognition and parental care in Tokay geckos (Gekko gecko). We will look at laterality, coping style, parental care behaviour and cognition (individual and social learning, quantity discrimination, inhibitory control, spatial memory) and how these change depending on the early social environment, development and within and across years.
2022
​We started our captive population with 22 adult, male and female geckos in April 2021. They have settled into the updated, completely climate controlled "Night house" at the Ethological Research Station "Hasli" in Bern. By now we are in our second breeding season and have successfully increased our captive population to 39 individuals. With the enthusiastic help of bachelor and master students, we have started publishing on the cognition of these geckos, and I have also dipped my toe into welfare related research. All in all, it is going well and I hope to continue with this research in the future.
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Artist: Francesca Angiolani
Credit: BPFC - Bodypainting For Conservation,
a project dedicated to personify nature, its' beauty and threats, and conservationists/ scientist working on it
​The feathered reptile - Chicken cognition and welfare in Belgium!
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After 4 years at the University of Bern and many failed grant applications I say goodbye to Switzerland and move to the University of Gent in Belgium. I will join the new EcoBird group and will focus on studying the cognition and spatial behaviour of broiler chickens and the effects of early life enrichment on ranging behaviour. I have been interested in animal welfare since around 2018 and am very excited to focus on more applied outcomes of my research. Although I will change systems, I will still work on reptiles in the future.
