Doctoral Students
PhD Net Representative

Zoë Goldsborough
IMPRS Doctoral StudentAwarded Students
Nadia Balduccio
IMPRS Doctoral StudentIMPRS Student Representative
I am
an ecologist specialized in tropical ecosystems. I investigated a
diverse array of wildlife in South America, Africa and Asia, putting
conservation at the forefront of my work. In my PhD, I focus on the
effect of human (Homo sapiens) hunting on mammal abundance and
movement patterns. In the wider study site of the LuiKotale Bonobo
Project, DRC, I assess the mammal community across areas that have been
protected for different lengths of time.
Conservation • Monitoring • Mammal Community • Hunting
Maria Camila Calderon
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI study group foraging in the Neotropical greater spear-nosed bat. In collaboration with Teague O'Mara and the Dechmann lab, I map resource distribution and combine it with high-resolution movement and acoustic data of whole groups of bats. I investigate how group foraging decisions can be facilitated by social information and the social interactions of the groups.
Zoë Goldsborough
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI am a behavioral ecologist, studying the cultural transmission of behaviors and how this relates to socio-ecological, environmental, and individual differences. By combining observations with non-invasive experiments and statistical modeling, I aim to learn more about animal culture. I study social learning of stone tool use in island living white-faced capuchin monkeys, with the aim to discover which factors drive the development of this behavior, as island populations seem to be more prone to develop tool use.
Emily Grout
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI am a behavioural ecologist, interested in communication in social mammals. Collaring white-nosed coatis living in Panama, I collect audio, high-resolution accelerometer and GPS data to assemble a call repertoire in combination with observed behaviours. I study the resulting effects of vocalisations on group cohesion, dynamics and movement, and the influence of environmental variation on mechanisms used in communication.
Communication & Collective Movement • Food For Thought • Coatis
Odd Jacobson
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI am a wildlife ecologist, specialized in field-based behavioral research. I am broadly interested in animal movement and space-use in group-living animals. By combining longitudinal data with spatial analytical tools, I investigate how demographic change influences home range behavior in groups of white-faced capuchins. My current research focuses on how sleep site locations can be used to leverage historical data from before GPS technology was introduced. Using this knowledge, I plan to address how within-group energetic requirements and novel spatial information introduced from immigrants drive space-use patterns over the long-term.
Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project • Capuchins • Immigration • Longitudinal data • Home range
Pranav Minasandra
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI am a computational biologist, interested in collective animal behaviour and movement patterns. My work is focused on social factors that affect synchronisation of wake-sleep cycles in animals. in cooperation with the Jordan lab, I will combine theoretical and experimental approaches to study these factors in cichlid fish. Using a model-fitting approach, I will address questions about the social dimension of synchronisation.
Claudio Manuel Monteza Moreno
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI am a field biologist interested in behavior, ecology and natural history of forest mammals. I study the dynamics of biodiversity and the effects of disconnected habitats caused by anthropogenic change. By assessing the occupancy of community of forest mammals in the Panama Canal area, I aim to identify the degree of landscape connectivity across plantation mosaics that are disconnecting forests.
Katja Slangewal
IMPRS Doctoral StudentIMPRS Student Representative
How does the brain integrate different, often conflicting, sources of information to form a decision? Using the small and transparent larval zebrafish, I study the neural circuits involved in decision-making. To understand these circuits, I combine behavioural experiments, model simulations and 2-photon imaging.
Kathrine Stewart
IMPRS Doctoral StudentI am a behavioral ecologist broadly interested in how group-living animals make decisions. Currently, I study foraging decisions by wild bonobos (Pan paniscus) to better understand how individuals optimize their nutrient intake and energetic costs as food availability varies, and how these individual foraging decisions influence group fission-fusion dynamics. I am also investigating how social and environmental factors influence groups’ decisions about when and how to interact with one another.
Decision-making • Foraging Behavior • Bonobos










