I am a behavioural ecologist, broadly interested in how social animals respond behaviourally and physiologically to changes in their environment. We know these responses are important for overcoming environmental challenges but linking them to fitness outcomes requires long-term monitoring of wild animal populations. I am particularly interested in understanding how behavioural and physiological adaptations from an evolutionary past (mis)match with our rapidly changing world and how we might leverage that information to predict population outcomes.
Project
In my current position as an Ambizione Research Fellow hosted in Arpat Ozgul’s group and as co-PI of the Vulturine Guineafowl Research Project (est. 2016) with Damien Farine, I aim to bridge the gap between behavioural ecology and population dynamics. During my postdoc at the University of Zurich, I set up the machine-learning pipelines to classify accelerometer data (from solar-powered tags) into behavioural states and showed how vulturine guineafowl – an arid-adapted bird – increase foraging effort as resources decline. These behavioural adjustments come at a cost (e.g., increased risk of predation), motivating me to pursue research questions that scale up from behavioural responses to fitness outcomes to population dynamics. During my PhD, I linked activity budgets to physiological stress correlates in chacma baboons and I will apply similar methods in the vulturine guineafowl to untangle how physiological responses related to foraging effort affect fitness outcomes.
I am proud and grateful to work with our Kenyan field team (past and present) who maintain the baseline data collection of Vulturine Guineafowl Research Project at the Mpala Research Centre project year-round. Three of the field team members are currently pursuing MSc projects on foraging ecology (Kennedy Sikenykeny), predation (Micah Wangaii) and juvenile development stages (Florence Wairimu) of the vulturine guineafowl.
CV
- 2026–present: Group Leader (SNSF Ambizione Fellow), University of Zurich, Switzerland
2022–2025: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Zurich, Switzerland
2018–2022: PhD in Behavioural Ecology and Socio-endocrinology, Swansea University, United Kingdom and University of Cape Town, South Africa
2016–2017: Field Manager, Vulturine Guineafowl Research Project, Mpala Research Centre, Kenya
2013–2015: MRes in Behavioural Ecology, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
2013–2015: Field Assistant / Project Manager, Dwarf Mongoose Research Project, Limpopo, South Africa
2010–2013: BSc in Psychology-Zoology, University of Bristol, United Kingdom