Plenary Speaker Dr Rahia Mashoodh
Rahia completed her PhD in 2014 at Columbia University (NY, USA) in behavioural epigenetics under the supervision of Prof. Frances Champagne. She then undertook postdoctoral training (as a CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow) in genomics/epigenomics in the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University with Prof. Anne Ferguson-Smith. After this, she then took up an independent BBSRC Future Leaders fellowship in the Department of Zoology (also at Cambridge) where she was based until 2023, where she transitioned to UCL to take up an Excellence Fellowship in the Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment.
Plenary Speaker Dr Jolle Jolles
Jolle Jolles is a recently appointed Senior Research Scientist (Investigador Cientifico) at the CSIC Centre for Advanced Studies Blanes (CEAB). After acquiring his PhD at the University of Cambridge (2016), he held positions in the UK, Germany, and Spain, including a von Humboldt Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, a Zukunftskolleg Fellowship at the University of Konstanz, a Severo Ochoa postdoctoral position at CREAF, and a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship at CEAB-CSIC. With a background in Behavioural Ecology and Experimental Biology, he is known for his work on individual heterogeneity and its consequences for the collective behaviour and functioning of animal groups. More recently he started to bridge out to the fields of Freshwater Ecology and Environmental Science to study the broader social and ecological consequences of behavioural variation, in particular in relation to environmental change. Jolles uses a strongly interdisciplinary approach and has recently established a dedicated laboratory for the experimental study of animals – including state-of-the-art approaches to monitor, track and analyse animal behaviour – as well as his own field site for monitoring fish populations and environmental change in intermittent streams. Jolles is also known for pushing novel mechanistic and technological approaches with his work and for being at the forefront of helping bring low-cost, open electronics to the Biological Sciences, including theoretical articles, organising workshops, and creating tutorial websites.
Student Plenary Winner: Elisa Fernández Fueyo
Congratulations to our nominated Student Plenary Speaker, Elisa Fernández Fueyo!
Elisa is a PhD student studying primate communication with the Royal Holloway University of London, University College London, and the Tsaobis Baboon Project. Elisa previously conducted her BSc in Biology at University of Oviedo (Asturias, Spain), her MSc in Human Evolution and Behaviour at the University College London, and additionally conducted an internship with rescued chimpanzees at MONA Foundation (Girona, Spain). Elisa's plenary talk will focus on her PhD research, "What can baboons tell us about the evolution of language? A quantitative approach to intentionality and flexibility in animal communication".
Chris Bernard Award Winner: Liran Samuni
Dr. Liran Samuni is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, where her research focuses on cooperation and intergroup relations in chimpanzees. She completed her PhD in Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in 2019 and received her Masters in Zoology from the Tel-Aviv University in 2013. Before moving to Harvard, she was also a postdoctoral researcher at Max Planck. She has studied non-human primates for over a decade, studying the intersection between intergroup dynamics, cooperation, and social bonds in chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives, as windows into our past. She approaches these questions by observing wild chimpanzees at the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire, and wild bonobos at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve, DR Congo.