Neeltje Boogert

Neeltje Boogert research focuses on the mechanisms and fitness consequences of cognition. During her PhD at McGill University in MontreaI, Canada, she studied avian cognition in a wide range of bird species in captivity as well as in the field, from Zenaida doves in Barbados to song sparrows in the United States to zebra finches in Australia. She developed tests to measure cognitive performance in species’ natural habitats, and found that in song birds, males’ song repertoire size might be an indicator of their cognitive capacity. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, where she investigates whether vocal learning and other forms of social learning show parallel transmission mechanisms in starlings.