Class of 2024
James Mannix – Class of 2024; Cognitive Science Major
James joined us in the Spring of 2023. James worked on a project to understand how the distribution of sound energy and seasonal changes in habitat structure influence the active space of chickadee, titmice, and nuthatch vocalizations at the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. He worked on calibrating our field equipment and setting up transects at the VFEP.
Abigail Paull – Class of 2024; Biology Major
Abigail joined us in the Spring of 2024. She worked on a project to understand how the distribution of sound energy and seasonal changes in habitat structure influence the active space of chickadee, titmice, and nuthatch vocalizations at the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. She is currently pursuing a career in conservation.
Lucinda Thompson – Class of 2024; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Lucinda joined the lab in the Fall of 2023. Lucinda worked on a project to understand how the distribution of sound energy and seasonal changes in habitat structure influence the active space of chickadee, titmice, and nuthatch vocalizations at the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. She worked on sound source recordings and signal playback. Lucinda is pursuing medical school.
Class of 2023
Trina Chou – Class of 2023; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Trina joined us in the Fall of 2020 and was part of team Chickadee, conducting experiments with wild-caught chickadees (and titmice and nuthatches) to better understand how anthropogenic noise affects anti-predator behaviors. Trina and Anjali presented this work at the 2023 SICB Meeting in Austin, TX and we recently published this work in PLoS One. Trina’s thesis focused on auditory processing in noise in these three species. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Jessie Tanner’s lab at UT Knoxville.
Avani Desai – Class of 2023; Biology Major
Avani joined us in the Fall of 2021. Avani was part of Team Chickadee, conducting experiments with wild-caught chickadees (and titmice and nuthatches) to better understand how anthropogenic noise affects anti-predator behaviors. Avani then took on an investigation auditory processing in noise in Northern saw-whet owls, following up on some work by Joe Nowacki. Avani is currently pursuing a DVM at Western University of Health Sciences.
Mark Fossesca – Class of 2023; Environmental Studies and Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Mark joined us in the Fall of 2021. Team Chickadee conducted experiments with wild-caught chickadees (and titmice and nuthatches) to better understand how anthropogenic noise affect anti-predator behaviors. Mark also worked on a review paper on the comparative avian auditory processing of sounds in noise and its implications for behavior and conservation. Mark is currently working as a lab tech at MIT.
Julia Goldberg – Class of 2023; Biology Major
Julia joined us in the Fall of 2020. Team Chickadee conducted experiments with wild-caught chickadees (and titmice and nuthatches) to better understand how anthropogenic noise affects anti-predator behaviors. Julie is working in the medical field and preparing for med school.
Anjali Krishna – Class of 2023; Biology Major
Anjali joined us in the Fall of 2020 and was part of team Chickadee, conducting experiments with wild-caught chickadees (and titmice and nuthatches) to better understand how anthropogenic noise affect anti-predator behaviors. Trina and Anjali presented this work at the 2023 SICB Meeting in Austin, TX and we recently published this work in PLoS One. Anjali investigated the information encoded in pilot whale calls for her thesis. She is currently pursuing an M.S. at St. Andrew’s in Scotland.
Morgan Stephens – Class of 2023; Biology Major
Morgan joined us in the Fall of 2021. Morgan helped transcribe our field records, keep our Endnote up to date, and manage the lab. Morgan is currently working as post-bac in Dr. Liz Thiele’s lab and is interesting in pursuing a graduate degree.
Avery Bauman – Class of 2023; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Avery joined us in the Fall of 2020 and was part of Team Chickadee.
Nick D’Arrigo – Class of 2023; Biology Major
Nick joined us in the Spring of 2021 and was part of Team Chickadee.
Sophie Jones – Class of 2023; Biochemistry Major
Sophie joined Team Chickadee in the Spring of 2022.
Raia Stern – Class of 2023; Cognitive Science Major
Raia joined us in the Spring of 2021 and was part of Team Chickadee.
Visiting Faculty – 2022
Dr. Ben Basile – Visiting Professor
We were happy to welcome a special guest, Dr. Ben Basile, to our lab in 2021/2022. Ben was a visitor in the Psychological Science department at Vassar and has many years of experience in primate behavior research. He’s currently an Assistant Professor at Dickinson College. You can find out more about Ben here and here.
Class of 2022
Samuel Bertrand – Class of 2022; Biology Major
Sam joined us in the Spring of 2021 and was part of Team Chickadee. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Oregon.
Miriam Cubstead – Class of 2022; Biology Major
Miriam joined us in the Spring of 2021. She was on Team Chickadee learning the ropes of working with wild-caught chickadees, developing a research project, and helping produce taxidermy mounts.
Class of 2021
Joe Nowacki – Class of 2021; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Joe joined us in the Spring of 2020. He assisted Eileanor and Jaein with their Northern saw-whet owl projects. He also led an investigation of how noise affects the auditory detection limits (critical ratios) of the Northern Saw-whet owls. Joe is currently working at the NIH.
Class of 2020
Jaein Kim – Class of 2020; Biology Major Major
Jaein joined us in the Fall of 2019. Jaein worked on head-related transfer functions and the morphological correlates of frequency-specific directional auditory sensitivity in the Northern saw-whet owls.
Eileanor LaRocco – Class of 2020; Biology Major
Eileanor joined us in the Spring of 2020. She analyzed auditory evoked potential data that we used to determine the frequency-specific directional auditory sensitivity of the Northern saw-whet owls. She went on to pursue a M.S. in data science.
Ruth Demree – Class of 2020; Biology Major
Ruth joined us in the Spring of 2018 and worked with Project Chickadee.
Meg Mathews – Class of 2020; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Meg joined us in the Spring of 2018 (although she helped us with some auditory processing work the previous semesters!). Meg worked on frequency-specific directional sensitivity of Northern saw-whet owls skulls.
Class of 2019
Chris McCann – Class of 2019; Biology and Italian Major
Chris joined us in the Spring of 2017, working on our Project Chickadee team. Chris worked with Sandy and Nick on the individual variation in vocal production project. He studied abroad in Italy and ultimately plans to head to medical school.
Sandy Jiang – Class of 2019; Biology Major
Sandy joined us in the Spring of 2017 and is working on our Project Chickadee team. Sandy is working with Emma to help maintain our banded population of chickadees at the farm and is assisting in our individual variation project by analyzing vocal recordings in the lab. She has previously worked with Dr. Proudfoot on saw-whet owls.
Emma Kline – Class of 2019; Biology Major
Emma joined us in the Fall of 2017. She worked on our Project Chickadee team. Emma will be worked with the rest of the team to help maintain our banded population of chickadees at the farm and is assisting in our individual variation project by analyzing vocal recordings in the lab. Emma is graduating fall semester of 2018 and ultimately plans to be a small animal vet.
Jake Korbin – Class of 2019; Biology and Political Science Major
Jake joined us in the Spring of 2017 and is working on our Project Chickadee team. Jake worked on the social dominance project with Aaron. He’s one of our few members that will jog out to the platforms! Jake is graduated in fall semester of 2018 and worked as an EMT before heading back to school to become a P.A.
Kevin Park – Class of 2019; Biology Major
Kevin got his start in the Fall of 2015 as our go-to-guy for research support, assisting with day-to-day lab operations, research library organization, and data management. Kevin also assisted us with Project Chickadee.
Karla Zabala – Class of 2019; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Karla joined us in the Fall of 2017. She worked on our Project Chickadee team with Katie investigating whether black-capped chickadee mobbing calls are syntactically consistent across the day.
Class of 2018
Julia Beatini – Class of 2018; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Julia joined us in the Fall of 2015. Julia worked on a number of project investigating the auditory processing of Northern saw-whet owls (both pictured here). JShe presented a poster and a talk at two national meetings and published a number of papers on Northern saw-whet owl auditory processing. Julia went on to Harvard Medical School.
Megan de Koning – Class of 2018; Biology Major
Megan joined us in the Fall of 2017 (although she helped us install our new audiology booth during the previous semester!). She worked on the auditory processing of Northern saw-whet owls with Julia. Megan and published a paper about 3-D AEPS from the owls to asses directional hearing. Megan became a pro at handling the owls (pictured at left) and went on to Vet school in South Africa.
Katie Nordstrom – Class of 2018; Biology Major
Katie joined us in the Fall of 2015. She is part of Project Chickadee. Katie worked on setting up nestboxes for black-capped chickadees so we can monitor individuals over time.
Katie Hoots – Class of 2018; Biology Major
Katie joined us in the Fall of 2017. She worked on our Project Chickadee team. Katie investigated whether black-capped chickadee mobbing calls are syntactically consistent across the day.
Class of 2017
Nicholas Fancher – Class of 2017; Biology Major
Nick joined us in the Fall of 2016. He and Aaron co-led our Project Chickadee team. Nick worked on a project investigating individual variation in the chick-a-dee call in our population of Black-capped Chickadees at the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. This is a long-term project on chickadee audition and behavior. Nick will be working in a lab in Boston next year and applying to medical school.
Jingyi Gao – Class of 2017; Biology Major
Jingyi joined us in the Spring of 2015, working with Aaron and Tymon on our project investigating the effects of exposure to social stimuli on auditory process in the green treefrog. During the summer of 2015 she worked on the effects of deer browsing on sound propagation as part of an URSI project. Jingyi went on to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia.
Aaron Harvey – Class of 2017; Biology Major
Aaron joined us in the Fall of 2016. He and Nick co-leading our Project Chickadee team. Aaron was investigating the social dominance hierarchies in winter flocks of our banded Black-capped Chickadee population. This is a long-term project on chickadee audition and behavior.
Class of 2016
Timothy Boycott – Class of 2016; Biology Major
Tim joined us in the Fall of 2014. Tim spent the fall working with Jacob on a field project investigating the effects of anthropogenic noise on mobbing behavior in titmice. Tim then conducted field work at the Millbrook Zoo in Spring of 2015. Tim completed an URSI project investigating the effects of deer browsing on sound propagation over the summer with Jingyi. He was invited to give the URSI student keynote and later took second place in the Animal Behavior Society student poster competition. In 2015/2016 Tim led our team working on a long-term project on chickadee audition and behavior. He earned his M.S. with John Swaddle at William and Mary and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Cornell University.
Aaron Kim – Class of 2016; Italian Major
Aaron got his start in the Fall of 2013 as our go-to-guy for research support, assisting with day-to-day lab operations, research library organization, and data management. Aaron worked on our project investigating the effects of exposure to social stimuli on auditory process in the green treefrog with Tymon and Jingyi.
Jeffrey Gerwin- Class of 2016; Biology Major
Jeff joined us in the Fall of 2015. He worked with Tim and Katie on a long-term project investigating chickadee audition and behavior.
Class of 2015
Carly Barbera – Class of 2015; Biology Major
Carly joined us in the Fall of 2015. She worked with Jacob on a field project investigating the effects of anthropogenic noise on mobbing behavior in titmice.
Jacob Damsky – Class of 2015; Biology Major
Jacob joined us in the Spring of 2014, braving the cold and snow to help us catch birds (including the titmouse he is holding here) out at the ecological preserve. Jacob developed a project for his senior thesis on the effects of anthropogenic noise on mobbing behavior in tufted titmice. This work was published in the Condor in 2017. He is currently working in consulting in Cleveland, OH.
Tymon Dickson – Class of 2015; Biology Major
Tymon joined us in the Spring of 2014. He worked with Aaron and Jingyi on our project investigating the effects of exposure to social stimuli on auditory process in the green treefrog. Tymon got his M.D. Case Western Reserve University and is currently a resident at MetroHealth.
Ali Ehrlich – Class of 2015; Science, Technology, and Society Major
Ali got her start working on the black-capped chickadee bioacoustic project. She was part of our platform-baiting and bird catching field team. Ali is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience at NYU.
Class of 2014
Arick Wong – Class of 2014; Neuroscience and Behavior Major
Arick got his start in the lab working on the black-capped chickadee bioacoustic project. He then went on to work on the auditory physiology of the black-capped chickadee, with a special emphasis on their frequency sensitivity (audiograms). We have published this work in the journal Zoology. Arick worked for two years at the Sleep Lab at Harvard Medical School. He is currently living in Seattle and pursuing a Ph.D.