Overview
Biological Anthropologist:
Primatology, Eco-Physiology, Conservation Biology
My research interests are primate behavioral ecology, sociality, life history, energetics, parasitology, and conservation. I got my start in primatology working as a field assistant on the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project, studying wild white-faced capuchin monkeys for one year in Costa Rica. I then joined the lab of Dr. Cheryl Knott at Boston University and received my Ph.D. in January of 2018. My dissertation work focused on understanding the costs and benefits of sociality using the semi-solitary orangutan as my study system. I am now interested in exploring the impact of ecological challenges on behavior and physiology, and the links between sociality and health in primates. I continue to collaborate to monitor the intestinal parasites of the orangutans in Gunung Palung National Park to determine what factors interact to influence infection patterns. I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania teaching an assortment of biological anthropology courses and continuing my research in collaboration with Dr. Erin Vogel's lab as a Research Affiliate at Rutgers University. We are examining the physiological impact of periods of fruit scarcity on wild orangutans and exploring the energetics of sociality and life history. Previously, I served as Postdoctoral Scholar-Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California from Fall 2018-Summer 2020, teaching The Human Animal (introductory biological anthropology), Primate Behavior and Ecology, and the capstone course for evolutionary biology majors, Theory and Methods in Human Evolutionary Biology.
Current Postdoctoral Research
Understanding the Impact of Fluctuating Resource Availability
Wild orangutans face unpredictable and extreme fluctuations in food availability. It has been hypothesized that this challenging environment explains their unique semi-solitary lifestyle and extremely slow life history. In collaboration with Dr. Erin Vogel at Rutgers University, I am currently examining the proximate mechanisms underlying the relationship between fluctuating resource availability, social behavior, and development. Using a method validated in wild chimpanzees using creatinine and specific gravity of urine (Emery Thompson et al. 2012; 2020), we found that orangutans experience muscle wasting during fruit shortages. Most currently, I am exploring inflammation across the lifespan using urinary neopterin. Next, we will explore the relationship among multiple non-invasive measures of energetic status to better understand their biological significance and the implications of ecological change for orangutan fitness. With climate change and rapid habitat destruction across Borneo, periods of fruit scarcity are expected to worsen, and this research will help to inform conservation priorities.
Dissertation Research
The Costs and Benefits of Sociality Explored in Wild Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii)
This study used a socioecological framework to examine the costs and benefits of sociality by comparing times when orangutans were solitary to times they were social. I found that the social behavior of orangutans in Gunung Palung National Park was influenced by fruit availability, demographics, and life history. Adolescent female orangutans were the most social age-sex class, displaying a tendency to seek the company of others, particularly their own mother, and to engage in notable affiliative interaction with unflanged males and elaborate sociosexual rituals with flanged males. Adolescent females also displayed behavioral signs of anxiety when they socialized, but they could be buffered from this anxiety if they had another adolescent female with them during their social party. Adult females and flanged males had elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their urine after socializing, supporting the idea that there are energetic constraints on orangutan sociality. I also investigated the risk of parasite transmission as a cost of sociality in orangutans, but found that differences in parasite infection did not differ among the age-sex classes in accordance with their degree of social contact. This study revealed a greater degree of gregariousness than orangutans are typically credited with, and highlighted the adolescent period as behaviorally distinct and socially rich for female orangutans who face unique challenges as members of a semi-solitary species with high levels of sexual coercion.
Gunung Palung National Park
Located in West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, Gunung Palung contains one of the largest remaining wild orangutan populations. Here, orangutans share their home with many other primates including white-handed gibbons, proboscis monkeys, tarsiers, red leaf monkeys, long-tailed macaques, and pig-tailed macaques. The Cabang Panti Research Station is located in the heart of the park, and hosts local and international researchers.
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