Leadership Teams

A Big-Team Open Science approach to avian cognition and behaviour research

Core team

A multi-site collaborative Open Science approach to avian cognition and behaviour research

The Leadership Team Members

The ManyBirds Project is led by a Core Team of researchers, with separate specific Study Leadership Teams formed to lead on each ManyBirds study.

If you are interested in collaborating or would like more information about ManyBirds project/ studies, please review our studies, sign up documents (when available) or contact us at: manybirdsproject1@gmail.com.

Founder: ManyBirds (Feb 2021)

Core Team Lead: ManyBirds (Feb 2021)

Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (Feb 2021)

Dr Rachael Miller (Harrison)

Cambridge University and Anglia Ruskin University, UK

“I am a Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK. I use comparative, developmental and ecological approaches to explore the evolution of cognition, particularly in birds and primates (including humans). My research has applications for animal conservation and welfare, including in reintroduction of threatened species, such as Critically Endangered Bali myna.”

Founder: ManyBirds (Feb 2021)

Core Team Lead: ManyBirds (Feb 2021)

Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (Feb 2021)

Dr Megan Lambert

University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria

” I am an Elise Richter Fellow at the Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. I study kea (a notoriously curious and innovative parrot species) with a particular focus on their physical cognition, including their understanding of invisible physical properties such as weight, the limits of their tool-using abilities, and the causes and functions of their curiosity. “

Core Team Lead: ManyBirds (from 2021) and Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (from 2021)

Dr Stephan A. Reber

Lund University, Sweden

“I am a crocodilian specialist and study cognition and communication in alligators. Crocodilians and birds form the last remaining Archosaurs. I investigate cognitive performance in several bird and crocodilian species. I then link these findings to phylogeny and the size of certain brain areas. This allows me to trace the path of cognitive evolution through deep time in the Archosaurs.”

Core Team Lead: ManyBirds (from 2021) and Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (from 2021)

Dr Vedrana Šlipogor

University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic

“I am a USB postdoctoral fellow at the University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology, in Budweis (České Budějovice), Czech Republic. My research focuses on consistent inter-individual differences, i.e., animal personality, and its links with physiology and cognition in captive and wild common marmosets, and several other species of non-human primates, ungulates and subterranean rodents.”

Core Team Lead: ManyBirds (November 2021 to October 2023)

Dr Elias Garcia-Pelegrin

National University of Singapore, Singapore

“I am an Assistant Professor at National University of Singapore. My current research focuses on the use of deceptive motions to investigate attention, perception and complex cognition in corvids, cetaceans and primates, as well as the evolution of human artistic behaviour in the Upper Palaeolithic.”

Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (from 2022)

Dr Kai Caspar

Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany

“I am a Lecturer at Heinrich-Heine-University, in Dusseldorf, Germany. I am interested in vertebrate sensory ecology and comparative cognition with a focus on mammals.“

Core Team Lead: ManyBirds (from 2021)

Emma Arbeau

UX designer / Web designer

“I design and develop websites and apps to make the user’s experience easy, enjoyable, and accessible. While the exact methods varies from product to product and company to company, behavioral studies remain the main component of the processes.”

Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (from 2022)

Dr Jimena Lois-Milevicich

University of Buenos Aires, Argentina

“I am a postdoctoral fellow and a teaching assistant at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I study cognition in birds, mainly focussing on neotropical species of parrot.”

Study 1 Leadership Team: Neophobia in birds (from 2022)

Dr Claudia Mettke-Hofmann

Liverpool John Moores University, UK

“I investigate how evolutionary forces such as ecological factors, social organization, and life-style have shaped information gathering, learning, and memory on the species, population and individual (personality traits) level.”