Tayler (NSERC USRA) and Daniela (Volunteer RA) have joined the lab!
April 2024:
Brooke attended CUE Annual Research and Innovation Conference (CARIC) to present her research on the solitary male white-handed gibbon.
The Conference on Comparative Cognition (CO3 2024) ran smoothly in Albuquerque, New Mexico this year - a massive move after 30 years in Melbourne, Florida. We hope to host even more members next year! https://www.comparativecognition.org/conference.phpI received a CUE Travel Grant ($3000) to attend this conference.
We have completed a year of emu research, and seal (harbor & fur) research is officially ongoing!
January 2024:
In Winter 2024, I was excited to be instructing Research Designs ("...and Intermediate Statistical Methods in Psychology"; PSY 319 G) and "Special Topics: Comparative Cognition" (PSY 410A) for the first time in CUE history.
September 2023:
In Fall 2023, I taught Basic Psychological Processes (PSY 104 D & E) and Research Designs ("...and Intermediate Statistical Methods in Psychology"; PSY 319D). Emu touchscreen research is ongoing.
The Conference on Comparative Cognition (CO3) 2023 was back in-person on the beaches of Florida. This is when I transitioned into being a conference co-organizer for the 2024-2026 meetings, alongside Dr. Caroline Strang. I received a CUE Impact Grant ($2500) to attend this conference.
October 2022:
The 'Congdon Cognition, Learning, & Animal Welfare' (CCLAW) Laboratory was established in collaboration with the Edmonton Valley Zoo. I received a CUE SEED Grant ($2500) to purchase laboratory equipment, since used to setup a touchscreen procedure used to provide cognitive enrichment and gain valuable insight into the perception of a variety of species.
August 2022:
I had to say goodbye to the incredible animals and staff as I finished my postdoctoral work at the Toronto Zoo early to started as an Assistant Professor at Concordia University of Edmonton (CUE). I am so happy to be back in Edmonton at a small, student-focused institution, teaching and building a research lab. In Fall 2022, I am excited to be instructing Research Designs ("...and Intermediate Statistical Methods in Psychology"; PSY 319 B & H) and initiate collaborations with nearby zoos and conservation areas.
Two of my latest first-authored publications were released within a month: 1) "The future of artificial intelligence in monitoring animal identification, health, and behaviour." was offered online through Animals, and 2) "Discrimination of high-and low-threat vocalizations: An examination of referential communication in black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) mobbing calls." was offered online through Animal Behaviour & Cognition. See the 'Research' tab for a PDF copies.
January 2022:
I taught Animal Behaviour (PSYC 3280 3.0 M) at YorkU in Winter 2022. Courses were online (synchronous/asynchronous mix) for the first few weeks (due to provincial restrictions), then in-person classes started in February. It was a wonderful course to teach, complete with face-to-face instruction with such incredible students!
October 2021:
My partner (T.J.) and I made the major move across the country to Toronto! It has been wonderful finally physically working at the Toronto Zoo and getting to know both the Sumatran orangutans and my colleagues.
I started an industrial postdoctoral fellowship at York University, funded by a Mitacs Accelerate internship, collaborating with Toronto Zoo (financially supported by the Wildlife Conservancy, https://www.wildlifeconservancy.ca/) and EAIGLE Inc. tech company. I am thrilled to be working under the supervision of Dr. Suzanne MacDonald, programming artificial intelligence to monitor and further improve the well-being of orangutans! Media regarding this project:
I started teaching two more introductory Psychology courses online at Concordia University of Edmonton (PSY 104 L & M). These courses were offered with asynchronous lectures, optional synchronous seminars, and flexible phone and video meetings. I enjoyed a second semester at Concordia University of Edmonton (CUE), and will miss the institution and students greatly!
December 2020: Kim Campbell' publication "Perception of sex differences in black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) chick-a-dee calls" was offered online through Animal Behavior and Cognition (see the 'Publication' tab).
September 2020:
My first-authored publication "Can you hear me now? The effect of signal degradation on perceived predator threat in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)" was offered online through Animal Cognition. See the 'Research' tab for a PDF copy.
I taught two introductory Psychology courses online at Concordia University of Edmonton (PSY 104 D & E). I loved shifting to a small, student-focused university!
August 2020: I started research for Dr. Marcia Spetch, under a brief contract, preparing a review paper on desert navigation.
May 2020: Erin Scully's publication "Discrimination of black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) chick-a-dee calls produced across seasons" was offered online through Animal Behavior and Cognition(see the 'Publication' tab).
March 18, 2020:Congratulations to the new Dr. Erin Scully!!
*Winter semester 2020: The pandemic required a transition from face-to-face to online teaching as the primary instructor of PSYCO 381 B1, and team-teaching PSYCO 104 B2 with Erin Scully. My course content was offered asynchronously with flexible synchronous phone and video support. February 2020:
My first-authored publication "Acoustic discrimination of predators by black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)" was offered online through Animal Cognition. See the 'Research' tab for a PDF copy.
Cody Freas' publication "Pheromone cue triggers switch between vectors in the desert harvest ant, Veromessor pergandei" was offered online through Journal of Insect Physiology (see the 'Publication' tab).
November 2019: I walked across the stage to convocate my PhD on November 20th, coincidentally my 28th birthday. I also received a nomination for the Governor General's Gold Medal award.
September 2019:
Cody Freas' publication "Same but different: Socially foraging ants backtrack like individually foraging ants but use different mechanisms" was offered online through Journal of Insect Physiology (see the 'Publication' tab).
I was the primary instructor of PSYCO 104 X02 and PSYCO 282 X02, and team-taught PSYCO 485 A1 in Fall 2019 with Dr. Cody Freas.
August 2019:
I successfully defended my PhD dissertation on August 16th, titled "Perception and communication in the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus).
June 2019:
My first-authored publication "Hear them roar: A comparison of black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) and human (Homo sapiens) perception of arousal in vocalizations across all classes of terrestrial vertebrates" was offered online through the Journal of Comparative Psychology (JCP). See the 'Research' tab for a PDF copy.
Media coverage on the recent publication includes nine online articles (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190712133336.htm, https://phys.org/news/2019-07-intense-emotion-universal-language-species.html), one written article, and three radio interviews (CBC Edmonton, CBC Calgary, Global News: https://omny.fm/shows/the-morning-news-with-gord-gillies/chickadee-interview).
May-June 2019:
The Songbird Neuroethology Laboratory started the Spring/Summer semester off productively by submitting SIX manuscript for publication to various journals. My PhD dissertation is comprised of four of these manuscripts.
April 2019:
Chris Sturdy and I published a commentary for Learning & Behavior on Sukuzi's (2018) article investigating referential communication in Japanese tits, titled "Sometimes a stick might just be a stick" (see the 'Publication' tab).
Eight (8) Songbird Neuroethology Laboratory undergraduate students participated in the Harder/Royce Conference at the UofA, including two of my research students (Samiha Khandker & Sadra Aghazadeh). Congrats to Stephanie Thunberg and Mohammed Ghasoub who were part of the 4-way tie for 'Best Poster'!
Kim, Kina, Chris, and myself attending CO3 2019. I presented my half-decade (5th) talk titled "Referential communication in black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) mobbing calls.
Dr. Susan Healy (University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland) will be visiting UofA and MacEwan to talk on her research with hummingbirds and nest-building, respectively, on April 25 and 26.
October 2018:
I returned for a third time to Arizona to assist Dr. Spetch and Dr. Freas in our experiment regarding the navigational abilities of harvester ants (Veromessor pergandei).
While in Arizona, our collaborative work was accepted for publication, "Odometry and backtracking: Social and individual nagivation in group foraging desert harvester ants (Veromessor pergandei)" in Animal Cognition (see the 'Publication' tab).
Kim Campbell's "The effects of anthropogenic noise on feeding behaviour in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)" was also accepted for publication in Behavioural Processes(see the 'Publication' tab).
September 2018: Erin Scully's publication "ZENK expression in the auditory pathway of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) as a function of D note number and duty cycle of chick-a-dee calls" was offered online through Behavioural Brain Research(see the 'Publication' tab).
June 2018: Dr. Chris Sturdy and myself were invited to speak at the International Conference on Language and Social Psychology (ICLASP16), "Emotional perception in humans and birds". April-May 2018: I assisted both Dr. Marcia Spetch and Dr. Cody Freas in studying the navigational abilities of harvester ants (Veromessor pergandei) in Arizona.
Friday, April 13th: I assisted in bringing in Dr. Fiona Cross, a New Zealand arachnologist, who visited the University of Alberta for a special talk titled "Insights from specialized spiders into the study of animal cognition". Dr. Cross was also a hosted speaker at MacEwan during her speaking series.
April 3-8, 2018: Kim, Erin, Chris, and myself attended the Conference on Comparative Cognition (CO3) in Melbourne, FL. This year the conference honoured the contributions of Dr. Marcia Spetch, an internationally recognized expert in the field of comparative cognition and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
January 2018:
From teaching "PSYCO 381: Principles of Learning", I made it on to the 2017 Fall Teaching Honor Roll, with distinction.
January field research was quite frosty, but highly successful.
December 2017: My dissertation proposal was submitted and accepted by my supervisory committee, officially projected to defend my PhD in August 2019.
November 2017: I assisted Dr. Marcia Spetch in studying the foraging and navigation system of Veromessor pergandei, a species of harvester ant, in the Sonoran desert of Arizona over the Fall Reading Week.
September 2017:
The Sturdy lab welcomed two new members, William Service (MSc student) and Kina Montenegro (PhD student).
I started teaching my first class, "PSYCO 381: Principles of Learning", as the primary instructor.
August 31, 2017: I received the Department of Psychology Graduate Research Award 2016, awarded annually for the best publication. This is award is for my first-authored publication, "Chickadee behavioural response to varying threat levels of predator and conspecific calls", published in IJCP.
August 23, 2017: A summer of field research has come to an end! Alyshia Skurdal, who was funded by an NSERC USRA, spent the past two months in the field presenting taxidermic mounts to wild songbirds. We are both excited that this research is complete and we can get back in the lab.
August 2017: The Sturdy Lab wrote an entry for the Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior titled "Passerine vocal communication". Our post-doc, Shannon Mischler, first-authored this work. I also retired from my position as the Graduate Lunch Series coordinator after two years of service, but will continue to serve the Graduate Psychology Association as an alternate member.
July 2017:
Piera Filippi's publication "Humans recognize emotional arousal in vocalizations across all classes of terrestrial vertebrates: Evidence for acoustic universals" was offered online through Proceedings of the Royal Society B. I am second author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
Erin Scully's publication "ZENK expression following conspecific and heterospecific playback in the zebra finch auditory forebrain" was offered online through Behavioural Brain Research. I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
April 17-23, 2017: The Sturdy lab went to CO3 in Florida again. I presented my third talk: "An investigation of the effect of signal degradation on perceived predator threat."
April, 2017:
Allison Hahn's publication "Discrimination of acoustically similar conspecific and heterospecific vocalizations by black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)" was offered online through Animal Cognition. I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
Neil McMillan's publication "Chickadees discriminate contingency reversals presented consistently, but not frequently" was offered online through Animal Cognition. I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
April 8, 2017: Shannon Mischler, Erin Scully, Kim Campbell, and I attended the UofA Research Showcase at the Telus World of Science (TWOSE) to inform the public, both children and adults, about the Songbird Neuroethology Laboratory's research and findings.
March 24, 2017: Alyshia Skurdal, a URI research Stipend winner (Spring/Summer 2016) and 499 student (September 2016-April 2017) that I supervised, presented a poster at the 31st Annual Joseph R. Royce Conference. She won the Undergraduate Research Showcase for this poster titled "Black-capped chickadee behavioural responses to mammalian and avian predators of varying threat levels". Alyshia has since won an NSERC USRA to continue her work on our project through Spring/Summer 2017.
March 2017: Allison Hahn's chapter "Mechanisms of communication and cognition in chickadees: Explaining nature in the lab and field" was published online in Advances of the Study of Behavior. I am second author on this chapter (see the 'Publication' tab).
January 2017: Christopher B. Sturdy's review paper "Moving from perceptual to functional categories in songbirds" was offered online through the International Journal of Comparative Psychology (IJCP). I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
December 12, 2016: I successfully passed my Candidacy exam. I am officially a "PhD Candidate", now certified to teach university courses.
November 28, 2016: I completed my 7-day qualifying exam, permitting me to move on to a Candidacy exam defense.
November 26, 2016: My first first-author publication "Chickadee behavioural response to varying threat levels of predator and conspecific calls" was offered online through the in the International Journal of Comparative Psychology (IJCP). See the 'Research' tab for a PDF copy.
September 2016: Kim Campbell's first first-author publication "Sex differences in the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) chick-a-dee calls" was offered online through The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
May 2016: Darren Proppe's publication "Mitigating road impacts on animals through learning principles" was offered online through Animal Cognition. I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
April 12-17, 2016: The Sturdy lab went to CO3 in Florida again and I presented my second CO3 talk, "Dissociation of threat level and behaviour: Differences between conspecific and heterospecific signals", as a part of the 'Ron Weisman Outstanding Student Presentation Competition: Paper'.
March 2016: Natalie, a 496 student that I supervised September 2015-April 2016, presented a poster at the 30th Annual Joseph R. Royce Conference: "Do cues make a difference in perception? An investigation of humans' ability to differentiate arousal levels of animal vocalizations."
February 2016: Allison Hahn's publication "Black-capped chickadees categorize songs based on features that vary geographically" was offered online through Animal Behaviour. I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
November 18, 2015: I walked across the stage at convocation - "Jenna Congdon, MSc".
September 2015: I started as a PhD student, continuing under Dr. Sturdy's supervision.
August 26, 2015: I successfully defended my Master's thesis!!
June 2015: Allison Hahn's publication "Biological salience influences performance and acoustic mechanisms for the discrimination of male and female songs" was offered online through Animal Behaviour. I am a co-author on this publication (see the 'Publication' tab).
April 14-19, 2015: The Sturdy lab went to the Conference on Comparative Cognition (CO3) in Florida and I presented my first conference talk: "Chickadee behavioural response to varying threat levels of predator and conspecific calls."
July-August 2014: I supervised, and co-supervised, WISEST (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science, and Technology) students for the summer. Lucy gave a poster presentation at the WISEST Conference on our work: "Chickadee motor behavioural response to indicated threat."
March 28, 2014: I presented my first poster at the 28th Annual Joseph R. Royce Conference for my first-year Master's project: "Chickadee vocal response to threat-level varies with signaler."
September 2013: I moved to Edmonton, AB to join the Songbird Neuroethology Laboratory at the University of Alberta under supervision of Dr. Christopher B. Sturdy.
May-August 2013: I won an NSERC USRA to work in Dr. Laurie Bloomfield's laboratory at Algoma University. I had been volunteering as a research assistant since January.
June 2013: I walked across the stage at convocation - "Jenna Congdon, BSc".
March 2013: I presented my honours thesis research at the 26th Annual Honours Psychology Thesis Conference: "The influence of P300 information on reaction time." This work was completed with Dr. David R. Brodbeck at Algoma University in my hometown Sault Ste. Marie, ON.