Dr Fay Clark

Career Development Fellowship | Royal Society This scheme provides the most talented early career scientists from underrepresented groups in STEM with research funding and high-quality training opportunities to build a strong base for a successfu...

Fancy joining us?
Check out this excellent @royalsociety.org Career Development Fellowship:
royalsociety.org/grants/caree...
If you're eligible & are interested in social behaviour, vocal communication or anthropogenic impacts on wildlife, feel free to DM or email me.
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social

I'll be a speaker at this wonderful in-person event at the Zoological Society of London on 30 September! Tickets are FREE!

@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised!

3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution

2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions.

Please share and apply!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

I'll be a speaker at this wonderful in-person event at the Zoological Society of London on 30 September! Tickets are FREE!

Flyer advertising the Max Planck School of Cognition 4-year PhD fellowship programme, with a photograph of prior fellows. Interdisciplinary research, outstanding faculty, fully financed. You can now apply, sign up for the Applicant Support Program, and/or register for a Q & A session, all via the webpage: cognition.maxplanckschools.org

Applications open for fully funded 4-yr positions in the unique interdisciplinary program of the @maxplanck.de School of Cognition. Pursue a passion for science at the forefront of fundamental & applied research, mentored by a network of world renowned researchers.🧪
cognition.maxplanckschools.org/en

It turns out an ideal place to rest and mend a broken foot is the Norwegian fjords (a little tricky to get there but worth it!)

Glow-in-the-dark marsupial shows off its luminous fur — July’s best science images The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.

Further proof that quolls rule! 🌿🧪

Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships: Expressions of interest can be submitted until 31 October 2025.

Director at Max Planck - a unique position! The Open Call for Expressions of Interest in Max Planck Directorships is open now and can be submitted by the 31st of October 2025. ➡️ mpg.de/directors - Please share the Open Call among potential candidates.

I relate to this big time - I stand in my own way, way too much. I don’t have a solution, only solidarity!

A large benefit of an industry (enviro NGO) background is being able to get research done on a creative shoestring - begging, borrowing & building equipment/consumables. In academia, a large downside is trying to scale up operations & impacts in an equally dire funding landscape. Erm, how??!

This Researcher Wants Your Photos of ‘Gulls Eating Stuff’ A community science project examines how gull diets are shifting amid population declines.

Nice mention of our Communications and Public Affairs Director @susierabin.bsky.social in this article from @audubon.org about the Gulls Eating Stuff citizen science project 👇

www.audubon.org/magazine/res...

#GullsEatingStuff #CitizenScience

Brain Surfaces of 70 primate species

1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!

🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Picture of a smiling person holding up a copy of a book.

First copies of my book are here!! As a new faculty member, I realized that in addition to my research job, I also had a leadership job…and I wasn’t prepared for that.

This book is the guide I wish I’d had then, with the goal of helping others now.
 
jenheemstra.com/book

CRAB2025 Complexity Research in Animal Behaviour Satellite @ CCS 2025 - Siena, 3 September 2025 Animal groups can be considered as complex systems of interacting entities (the individuals). The collective beha...

The #CRAB2025 🦀 programme is out!

Join us in Siena on Sept 3 at #CCS25 for the 2nd edition of the Complexity Research in Animal Behaviour satellite 🐜🐦🦋🐳🐙🐝

🧑‍🏫 Invited talks by S. Melillo & P. Bartashevich

Full programme: sites.google.com/view/crab202...

@jbbrask.bsky.social @saraneven.bsky.social

How to Study Animal Minds Cambridge Core - Philosophy of Science - How to Study Animal Minds

Cambridge Elements are free to download until 7/25-check out my little book How To Study Animal Minds. I had fun writing this one, and I'll never forget how nervous I was in front of a bunch of scientist friends, including Sara Shettleworth, hearing their thoughts on the draft! tinyurl.com/3yy6a52c

It would be really useful to know why people are still choosing these journals. I know a lot of the zoo community publish in MDPI. I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess it’s because other journals don’t publish certain types of research (too applied, small N etc.), so there’s little choice.

a cartoon brain with purple tentacles and the word woo in yellow ALT: a cartoon brain with purple tentacles and the word woo in yellow

Such a pleasure to attend the Diverse Intelligences Summit in St Andrews. Making new friends, chatting with academic heroes, brainstorming Big Team Science & outreach, hanging out with old and new @divintelligence.bsky.social fellows, and basically having an epic week. My heart and brain are full.

Western University launches program to capitalize on shrinking U.S. research funding | CBC News Western University is looking to capitalize on massive shifts in the academic landscape of the United States with a new initiative designed to turn a difficult situation into a brain gain for both the...

Are you a PhD student, have an offer, or have had an offer recently rescinded from a US university? If so, Western (in London, ON, Canada) has a new scholarship program for you! Check out this news story. I can vouch for this university! You will love it.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Please repost. For those who might have missed it, our School has three ongoing positions advertised. The work environment here at Monash is top notch: supportive, collegiate and inclusive. And Melbourne is an awesome city to live in. Deadline fast approaching. Get cracking on those applications!

My sound track for Bristol➡️St Andrews is all sorted! 🎧
@manymindspod.bsky.social was the obvious choice, given that I’m joining the @divintelligence.bsky.social and wider Diverse Intelligence gang for their annual summit 🙌 🧠

The Biases in Captive Chimpanzee Cognitive Research: First Insights From the Ape Research Index (ARI) Database

Important new work (from Elisa Bandini,
@ctennie.bsky.social, @sofiaforss.bsky.social et al.) addressing an elephant in the room - how weird are our weirdest apes, and how is that skewing research efforts?

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Jurassic World had some pretty cool speculative dinosaur skills. Mutualistic hunting, T-rex swimming… a possible hint at mirror self recognition!? I absolutely loved dinosaurs growing up, and never in 200 million yrs thought I’d get to study ‘living dinosaur’ cognition rdcu.be/evZCt

Image: Nate DeWaele

Just returned from a @affect-evo.bsky.social ‬in Latvia, where we discussed how to map out affective states across phylogeny. No easy feat! Very proud to co-lead the 'joy' subgroup & will try my best to represent captive wildlife. A super challenging yet exciting COST Action to be a part of!

What are we talking about when we're talking about "cognition"?

Terminology in this field has become confused and confusing. While writing our recent review, we tried to structure terms for our own sanity, and provide a template in a Glossary

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

I've wanted to write this article for years. About my and other's struggles to even survive sometime in #academia. Thank you to the amazing editors at @plosbiology.org that gave me the forum to write this piece. #science

The #UFAW2025 conference was 💯! Highly flexible for multiple time zones and balancing other work (you can still register post hoc to access the recordings, I believe). My talk on animal gameplay was a call to develop rule-based challenges for animals so they can play well & develop skills.

NEW PAPER🎺
How does cognition determine an individual’s fitness? A systematic review of the links between cognition, behaviour and fitness in non-human animals

Lots of studies try to explain how cognition might evolve, by taking a behavioural ecology approach

Has this approach made any progress?🧵

The three academic positions (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer) in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University are now advertised. Details here:

Ecology:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

Genomics:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

Manufacture and use of allogrooming tools by wild killer whales The manufacture and use of tools, while widespread in terrestrial animals1, has been less frequently reported in marine taxa2. In cetaceans, clear exa…

We did some science. We found some things.
Killer whales get by with a little kelp from their friends.

Evidence of tool manufacture and use in resident killer whales - check it out!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We're hiring📢📢📢
To complement our team we're currently looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in animal communication and behaviour, ideally canids but not a must! Position is based in Vienna, Austria, and available for 4 years. Please check the attachment for details 🐺🐶😊