Good morning & welcome to #ASABpride A special #FollowFriday thread filled with LGBTQIA+ folks who study animal behaviour! #Pride

We'll be updating this thread all day, so you can sign up: https://forms.gle/dwkAMFuZK6yb2E2i8 or tweet & tag us @asab_tweets with the hashtag #ASABpride

@CarysLouisa is an animal behaviour and welfare scientist based in London, UK. She primarily studies dog behaviour, providing an evidence base for a UK dog welfare charity She also dabbled in zoo animal research, including big cat personalities + invertebrate husbandry

@CarysLouisa was introduced to animal behaviour research during her @Oxford_HumSci degree with lectures from Marian Dawkins. After volunteering at @WelshMountainZo she did the @EdinburghUni MSc Applied Animal Behaviour Animal Welfare, researching animal welfare in ecotourism

@CarysLouisa’s advice for working in the field is to find ways to get transferable skills in a tricky job market- working as a market research analyst allowed her to build skills in survey design, data management and statistical analysis before finding an animal behaviour job!

@BBM_Wong "My name is Bob Wong. I am a Professor of behavioural ecology at Monash University, Australia. A primary focus of my research is to understand the ecological and evolutionary impacts of anthropogenic change on animal behaviour."

@BBM_Wong "I went to university with the goal of studying botany but fell in love with animal behaviour thanks to a couple of exceptionally inspiring lecturers in a first year course. I still love plants but I’m very happy to be doing behavioural research with (mostly) fish."

@BBM_Wong "As a behavioural ecologist of Asian heritage and a member of the LGBTQI+ community, I have experienced first hand the transformative power of role models in my early career. Diversity, representation and visibility matter!"

@dj_pritchard86 "My name is David Pritchard and I am #BiInSci. Until recently I studied spatial memory in wild hummingbirds @univofstandrews and am currently studying buzz pollination in bumblebees @StirUni. I am interested in how cognition & sensing shapes natural behaviours."

@dj_pritchard86 "I've always been interested in biology (childhood spent birding & rockpooling!) and came to realise animal behaviour is my favourite part of biology! I love watching wild animals, wondering how they find food or remember locations & figuring out ways to test it."

@dj_pritchard86 "Bi visibility matters. Depending on our partner we can appear just gay or straight. I was told by a counsellor (!) in 2006 that Bi males don't exist & it was just a phase (it wasn’t). I may be married to @ShokoSugasawa but I'm still #BiInSci! Happy Pride Month!"

@julianawwm "I'm Juliana, a brazilian biologist studying dog behavior in University of São Paulo. I research visual communication between dogs & humans, and how different experiences affect that. I also write about behavior in general (in portuguese: http://medium.com/@juliana.werneck)"

@julianawwm "I've always wanted to understand how and why animals do what they do. In my undergrad, I got interested in dogs' domestication and in what makes our relationship with them so unique. So I set out to learn all I could about that"

@julianawwm "What helped me find myself in the area was interacting with professors who work on different fields, specially women with a trajectory I could identify with. Even if I didn't stay in that area, I learned a lot from them and those steps took me to where I am now"

@ke_cain "Senior Lecturer at Uni of Auckland. Most of my work is on free-living birds. I examine assumptions about the evolution of animal behaviour. Why females fight, why some birds are colorful and others drab, why song evolved & the role of hormones. http://kecain.weebly.com/index.html "

@ke_cain "I grew up in East Texas catching all sorts of critters. I never grew out of that and don't want to. Studying AB allows me to continue to watch, wonder and learn. I've worked all over the USA, Australia and now Aotearoa (New Zealand), and I'm still chasing critters."

@ke_cain "Currently working with the world's most ancient songbird. It's tiny, and weird and fascinating. They are also one of the birbiest birbs ever."

@skwinnicki "I am a bisexual PhD student in the labs of @Thomas_J_Benson and @cowbirdlab at UIUC ( @Illinois_Alma). I study the ways parent birds invest in the growth and development of their offspring ( @GrowBirdGrow)"

@skwinnicki "I have been a birder since I was a young child— I love watching birds, identifying them, and observing their behavior! I had so many questions that no one could answer that I decided I had to find out myself."

@skwinnicki "For my MS I assessed how environmental variation (especially brood parasitism) impacted the growth of grassland birds with @birdfiddler at @kstatebio. Stay tuned for the awesome results of project #PrairieBabies! "

@Hannah_Scharf_ "I am an asexual Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I study avian brood parasitism and information use in prothonotary warblers and brown-headed cowbirds. #PROWandCow #Pride "

@Hannah_Scharf_ "I became interested in birds at ~7 years old when I got a pet parrot. As a kid I would write letters to parrot magazines and make powerpoints about birds. In undergrad I learned that there are scientists that study bird behavior and I knew I wanted to do it too!"

@Hannah_Scharf_ "There's so much left to learn about why birds behave how they do & how these behaviors change over time. By investigating decision-making, recognition, hormones & more, I hope to better understand how brood parasites choose their hosts & how hosts are affected"

@stenysaurus "I’m Katie and I’m going into my senior year at UIUC. I was studying the neural responses of zebra finches to different audio stimuli before Covid-19. Now I’m helping two grad students with their work on Prothonotary Warblers and Cowbirds in Southern Illinois!"

@stenysaurus "I worked as a field tech for the lab the last two years. I get to see baby birds grow up and it is the most amazing thing. Working in the field and seeing how these birds interact with each other really solidified my interest in studying animal behavior."

@stenysaurus "My goal is to be the first woman in my family to earn a Ph.D. so I’m starting to look at programs. One of my favorite things to do as a field tech is help with the banding process. You really can see that each bird has their own personality - even as babies!"

@JonERichardson "I'm Jon, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh working in the @persmiseth lab on reproductive decisions in burying beetles. I'm very grateful to @asab_tweets for taking the time to highlight LGBTQ+ researchers this #Pride "

@JonERichardson "I first worked with burying beetles as an undergraduate and found them to be a fascinating (if a little gross) system for examining questions about parental care, family interactions and reproductive strategies. Here are some larvae begging for a meal!"

@JonERichardson "My research focuses on how individuals in less than ideal circumstances use alternative strategies to make the best of a bad situation. I'm currently in the final stages of my PhD and looking for post-doc opportunities in behavioural ecology. Happy #Pride ASAB!"

@asab_tweets: "who are you, where are you based, what do you study?"

@AMCELL: "Alan McElligott, University of Roehampton, London, animal behaviour, animal welfare, bioacoustics, precision livestock farming"

@asab_tweets: “how did you get into studying animal behaviour?”

@amcell: “I have always been interested in animals, even from a very young age”

@amcell "Latest paper examined the links between vocalisations and welfare in broiler chickens. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200609190730.htm

Advice 1 - try to work with people you like and trust.
Advice 2 - perseverance is important because there are many potential knocks along the way."

@andrea_sommese "My name is Andrea, I'm a 33y old Italian Ph.D. Student. I'm currently also working as a research assistant in Budapest and I'm studying dogs' cognitive and communicative abilities."

@andrea_sommese "I decided I wanted to be an ethologist when I was 3/4y old. I always loved watching documentaries and my Grandpa got me a series of books on the animal kingdom on which I learnt the basics and a lot of curiosities."

@andrea_sommese "Right now I'm collaborating with Dr Claudia Fugazza & we're trying to find exceptional dogs able to learn the names of many toys. We already have quite a few around the world, but we need more! I'm also looking forward to finish my Ph.D. & start a new adventure!"

@kirstyegraham "Hi, I’m Kirsty (she/they) and I currently work at @UniOfYork but am moving to @univofstandrews in September as a Research Fellow studying great ape gestures. I’m also the @asab_tweets Communications Officer and proudly nonbinary & #BiInSci! #Pride #ASABpride"

@kirstyegraham "I always loved imaginary to be and learning about animals, but didn’t realise that you could do that as a job until partway through undergrad. There I found a really supportive mentor who helped me to get experience and to apply for my PhD studentship."

@kirstyegraham "I’m now part of a team working on a proposal to establish an Equality & Diversity committee for @asab_tweets - please get in touch to collaborate or support!!

And, if you can, donate money you’d normally spend at #Pride to @COLOURSyouthuk https://www.gofundme.com/f/colours-youth-network"

@VivekNityananda "Hello, I'm Vivek Nityananda. I'm a research fellow at Newcastle University where I study insect vision and cognition."

@VivekNityananda"A project studying wasps in India (where I'm from) was my first intro to the field. Observing animals became a window into evolution & mechanisms -v exciting! Soon after I began a PhD looking at acoustic interactions in bushcrickets @CES_IISc (Sujatha Kardile)"

@VivekNityananda "My favourite animals are probably mantises (sorry bumblebees!). And wise Praying Mantis says: Find good mentors, find supportive environments, be good mentors and build supportive environments!"

@efvogel "I'm Emma Vogel I am based @UiTromso in Tromsø, Norway. I study the movement ecology of marine predators. I just defended my master thesis focusing on how herring distributions influence killer whale movements."

@efvogel "I have always wondered what animals were up to when we aren't able to be watching them. Upon learning how biologging tools can help us answer this question I was hooked!"

@efvogel "I'm excited to continue researching various marine predators' movement behaviors and how they might be shaped by different prey fields "

@ElliotHowaSpi "I'm Elliot, I'm a 2nd year DPhil student at the University of Oxford. I study behaviours of wild chimpanzees to understand the evolution of language relevant cognition in humans! I'm #dyspraxic as well as #LGBTQinSTEM."

@ElliotHowaSpi "Growing up Queer, I found escape in the natural world. I dreamed of working in nature as a teenager b/c it was 1 of the few places that felt exciting & safe! Working in the field can be risky for LGBTQ+ folk, but there are ways to make it safer & find your niche."

@ElliotHowaSpi "My goal for this year of my DPhil is to focus on my thesis outline & get the bulk of my first 2 chapters done So far this has been a bit of a wild ride with the pandemic, so I'm keeping this as a 'compassionate goal' - if it doesn't happen, it will next year."

@WascherClaudia "Hi, I am Claudia! I am a Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, and study how social behaviour affects physiology and cognition (mainly) in birds."

@WascherClaudia "I initially studied to become a teacher, but got caught with animal behaviour after an internship at @KLF_UniVienna, investigating how social interactions affect heart rate in greylag geese* (*funfact: I studied geese that used to hang out with Konrad Lorenz)"

@WascherClaudia "As a lesbian scientist, I am passionate about diversity in academia. I am pleased how things have improved since I started training as a scientist. As a more experienced researcher I now actively try to make academia a more welcoming environment for everybody."

@ChrisKrupenye "i'm an evolutionary cognitive scientist @durham_uni & @johnshopkins. i study how different species understand their social worlds--including chimpanzees, bonobos, humans, and dogs! social cognition, theory of mind, politics http://christopherkrupenye.weebly.com/ "

@ChrisKrupenye "i've always been fascinated by animals, especially primates. after spending my first year of university applying for grants & raising money, i got to travel abroad for the first time & spend the summer at a primate sanctuary in cameroon. and i never looked back!"

@ChrisKrupenye "i'll be recruiting phds & postdocs to join my new research group @johnshopkins from fall 2022. work will span humans, nonhuman apes, & dogs, & topics like theory of mind, social & physical knowledge, mental time travel, origins of the political mind. reach out!"

@WBEC_Thailand "Founder and Head of WBEC Research Center at Thailand, research specifically involves animal behavior both natural habitat and laboratory (e.g. habitat selection behavior) for wildlife - habitat relate on TBL of landscape."

@asab_tweets: How did you get into studying animal behaviour?

@WBEC_Thailand: Learning oneself & exploring opportunity to develop intelligence about animal behavior studies. I not nominee because the education system in Thailand not provided animal behavior studies program.

@WBEC_Thailand "Currently working on ecosystem services studies (emphasizes biodiversity) for learning and practice about sustainable campus in higher education."

@pheromoneEvo "I'm Tristram Wyatt, based at Zoology, Oxford University @oxzoodept and UCL @UCLCBER. I study animal behaviour and pheromones (chemical communication), all across the animal kingdom. I mostly write now."

@asab_tweets: How did you get into animal behaviour?

@pheromoneEvo: Natural history, pond life, and reading Niko Tinbergen's book 'Curious Naturalists' in my teens. Then inspired by Ellinor Bro Larsen, 1930s Danish ecologist's work on beetle maternal care in Bledius spectabilis

@pheromoneEvo "Smell's important to humans but before we can find pheromones, there's much to learn from psychologists' #reproducibility initiatives (in the rest of animal behaviour too). I make the case in @RSocPublishing https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0262 and "

@mpaganox "Hi, I am a PhD student working with @asherblab in Newcastle, UK. I am exploring expressions of emotions in dogs using informatics techniques. Most of the time I am wondering what mine and my gf's giant dog is thinking. She makes a good study subject!"

@mpaganox "I have always found myself observing other animals and wondering how they perceive their worlds. I enjoyed bird-watching and wildlife photography from a young age and after not getting into vet school, I realised that my true passion was animal behaviour"

@mpaganox "I'm excited to see where my PhD journey takes me & am grateful to have had & continue to have supportive & inspirational supervisors. The advice I would give is to talk to people from various disciplines & backgrounds, fruitful discussions can lead to new perspectives"