Overview

I work in both vertebrate and invertebrate systems and in the lab and field to investigate the causes and consequences of social behaviour. I am currently particularly interested in the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals and the mechanisms underlying decision-making in cooperative contexts. 

I am part of Exeter's first cohort of WHEN's 100 Black Women Professors NOW programme so please ask me about this! If you are a student at UoE and interested in helping us with an outreach project we are running as a cohort then get in touch and also consider applying to this funded part-time research internship.

If you are looking for opportunities to come and work with me I currently have positions available - see below and on my research page and be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn or via email.

In addition to my research endeavours and teaching and supervisory activities, I am passionate about contributing to service activities that foster a more inclusive and socially just research and education environment. My service activities currently include the following roles:

• University Race Equality Group academic member
• Departmental Academic Lead for Student Support | Racial Equality and Inclusion
• Exeter Soapbox Science founder and co-organizer
• University Responsible Metrics Champion
• BME Network steering group member

Qualifications

PhD, Animal Behaviour, December 2006
University of Copenhagen, Institute of Biology, Copenhagen, DK

MSc, Animal Behaviour, February 2002
University of Copenhagen, Institute of Biology, Copenhagen, DK

BSc, Biology, May 1996
Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Ithaca, NY, USA

Career

Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter, Psychology, 2018-Present

Lecturer, University of Exeter, Psychology, 2013-2018

Leverhulme Research Fellow, University of Exeter, Psychology, 2011-2013

Career Break (maternity leave), 2010-2011

Teaching Fellow in Animal Behaviour, University of Exeter, Psychology, 2009-2010

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2009; Sexual conflict in the Trinidadian guppy; University of Exeter, School of Psychology

Career Break (maternity leave), 2008-2009

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sexual segregation in the Trinidadian guppy; Bangor University, School of Biological Sciences, 2007-2008

Links

• Funded research internship - Black role models in HE
• Funded PhD studentship in snapping shrimp behavioural and acoustic ecology
• 1st April 2024 deadline - University of Exeter PhD Scholarship for Black British scholars - get in touch about developing a project together according to your interests
• University of Southampton Black Futures PhD scholarship scheme - get in touch with me to develop a project with us (Principle supervisor: Dr Lauren Nadler, University of Southampton) on fish physiology and behaviour

Research group links

• Animal Behaviour

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Research

Research interests

In my research I investigate the interplay between the behaviour of individuals and the processes and patterns expressed at the population level. My main line of research is aimed at understanding how inter-individual interactions act as a driving force for social evolution. Using the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) as a model system, I have developed a novel research framework for exploring selection for social traits in the context of sexual conflict (i.e. the conflict of interest between the sexes over reproduction) and cooperation. A major component of this work lies in identifying the underlying mechanisms driving changes in social behaviour.

Research projects

I am currently taking on PhD and Masters by Research students. Any specific projects are listed below, but you can also get in touch with other project ideas. I am currently offering projects in three study systems: Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata), fiddler crabs (Afruca tangeri), and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), but contact me if you have another system in mind.

• Funded opportunity: PhD Studentship - 27th March 2024 deadline - Funded PhD studentship in snapping shrimp behavioural and acoustic ecology
• Funded opportunity: PhD Scholarship - 1st April 2024 deadline - University of Exeter PhD Scholarships for Black British Researchers in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences - get in touch to develop a project proposal and apply! Also look here for possible projects:

  • Project title: The gut microbiome and social behaviour

    A ubiquitous feature of our own evolution and that of all multicellular organisms, is that this has occurred in close contact with microbe-rich environments. For most animal species this has resulted in an existence where close associations with microorganisms feature in tissue physiology, key developmental trajectories and even expression of behaviour. Gut microbiota are thought to be the most diverse of the associated animal host microbiota and have been implicated in brain physiology and development in a diverse range of taxa, generating what has been termed a microbiota-gut-brain axis. The breadth and strength of the implications of the microbiota-gut-brain axis for behaviour are just starting to be understood, although almost exclusively in laboratory settings. From this work we know that microbes play a role in the phenotypic expression of behaviour in both vertebrate and invertebrate species and that there are feedback loops between behaviour and microbiome characteristics, including for social behaviour. Laboratory studies and literature on wild populations suggests that mechanisms of microbiome transmission and feedback along the microbiota-gut-brain axis are likely to be fundamental to a number of behavioural and ecological processes. However, the causal processes underpinning microbiome variation in wild populations and, importantly, the consequences of this variation, are currently relatively underexplored. The aim of this project is carry out empirical work on the causal and reciprocal links between sociality and gut-microbiota in free-roaming animal populations. The work can be carried out in one of a number of systems depending on the candidates interests.

    Project title: Affective states and decision making in cooperative contexts

    Across a number of species individuals monitor the behaviour of others to gauge their performance and use this information in making decisions about how to interact with their environment. Appraisal of the environment is a key component of the decision-making process. Information within the environment will vary in extent, temporal stability and temporal spacing; each with its own degree of certainty or reliability. Recent work suggests that emotions or emotion-like states are important in this process across a number of species, including humans. We might consider emotions as the culmination of both physiological and cognitive processes resulting from how individuals appraise their environment and as such, key drivers of subsequent behavioural decisions. One context where individuals monitor ‘performance’ is during cooperative interactions. Cooperation occurs when individuals perform costly behaviours that benefit one or more other individuals and is a behaviour that is ubiquitous across scales of organismal complexity (i.e. it occurs from microbes to humans). The leading hypotheses for the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among non-kin, revolve around some form of reciprocity where cooperative behaviour is rewarded at some point in the future. We propose that for reciprocity to occur, the experience of cooperative behaviour has to have a ‘positive’ social effect on receivers of cooperative behaviour or at least bystanders to a cooperative act. However, the experience of defection is likely to undermine such ‘positive’ effects that would make the proximate persistence of cooperation within a population difficult to explain. The aim of this project is to use the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) as a model system to investigate the affective states of individuals in response to the cooperative behaviour of others and the resultant social decisions to provide insight into the proximate psychological processes and behavioural rules that support the persistence of cooperation.

• Funded opportunity: PhD Scholarship - University of Southampton Black Futures PhD scholarship scheme - get in touch with me to develop a project with us (Principle supervisor: Dr Lauren Nadler, University of Southampton) on fish physiology and behaviour

I also regularly take on research interns - get in touch if you would like ot speak about internship opportunities. Any currently available funded opportunities are listed below.

• Funded opportunity: Research intern - Qualitative and quantitative research study on the impact of Black role models in the higher education sector. This is open to current UoE students.

Research grants

• 2015 Leverhulme Trust
  The evolution of eye salience as a signal for communication
• 2013 FNU (The Danish Council for Independent Research / Natural S
  Social niche construction and evolutionary implications for animal behaviour
• 2010 Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
  Research Grant: Neighbourhood effects associated with social signalling: an investigation with the European fiddler crab (Uca tangeri)
• 2010 International Society for Behavioral Ecology
  Travel grant: Social implications of the battle of the sexes: sexual harassment disrupts female sociality and social recognition
• 2010 Leverhulme Trust
  Early Career Fellowship: Social implications of the battle of the sexes
• 2010 FNU (The Danish Council for Independent Research / Natural S
  Cognitive and physical aspects of animal communication networks

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Publications

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Teaching

Modules

2023/24

• PSY2214 - Observations and Experiments in Animal Behaviour
• PSY3449 - The Evolution of Social Behaviour

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Supervision / Group

Postdoctoral researchers

Postgraduate researchers

Alumni

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Office Hours:

2023/24 Term 2 Office hours: Tuesdays 14:00-16:00 - please book for an on-line or in-person slot

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