Plenary Speakers
Maydianne C. B. Andrade (she/her)
Jamaican-born Canadian evolutionary ecologist and Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science at York University. Her study system is widow spiders, especially black widows and their relatives. Her research asks how ecological and social factors shape mating behavior, reproductive strategies, organismal traits, species diversity, and evolutionary patterns. She is internationally recognized as a former Canada Research Chair in Integrative Behavioral Ecology, a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the Animal Behavior Society, and recipient of the 2024 Canadian Science Policy Centre Trailblazer Award.
Contact email: SciDean@yorku.ca
Peter Apell
Ugandan conservation leader, veterinarian, and Programs Director at the Jane Goodall Institute Uganda. His study system is the conservation landscape of Uganda, especially chimpanzee habitats, forest ecosystems, and the communities living alongside them. His work asks how biodiversity conservation, wildlife health, ecosystem restoration, sustainable development, and community-led action can be integrated to protect both people and nature. He is internationally recognized through his long-term leadership with the Jane Goodall Institute and his role as a JGI subject-matter expert in conservation and sustainable development.
Contact email: peter@janegoodall.org
Marcelo Araya-Salas
Costa Rican behavioral ecologist at the University of Costa Rica. His study systems include acoustic communication in Neotropical species, especially hummingbirds, wrens, bats, parrots, and other vocal animals. His research asks how animal communication systems evolve and change across cultural and evolutionary timescales, using behavioral observation, comparative phylogenetics, bioacoustics, and computational analysis. He is internationally recognized for developing widely used open-source bioacoustics tools, including warbleR, Rraven, and baRulho.
Contact email: marcelo.araya@ucr.ac.cr
Alice Auersperg
Austrian cognitive biologist based at the Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Her study systems are “brainy” birds, especially Goffin’s cockatoos, along with other parrots and corvids. Her research asks how innovation, physical cognition, play, problem solving, and tool use emerge, develop, and evolve in animals. She is internationally recognized as the head of the Goffin Lab, a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Young Academy, and winner of the prestigious FWF START Prize for work on tool use in Goffin’s cockatoos.
Contact email:
Patricia “Patty” Brennan
Colombian-born evolutionary biologist and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Mount Holyoke College. Her study systems include vertebrate reproductive anatomy, with work on birds, ducks, snakes, dolphins, alpacas, and other mammals and reptiles. Her research asks how sexual selection, sexual conflict, post-copulatory selection, and female reproductive morphology drive the evolution and diversification of reproductive structures. She is internationally recognized as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and the American Ornithological Society, and recipient of an NSF CAREER Award. Her research has broad appeal to the general public and has been featured in many news outlets, podcasts and documentaries.
Contact email: pbrennan@mtholyoke.edu
Culum Brown
Australia-based behavioral ecologist and Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University. His study systems are fishes, including salmonids, sticklebacks, rainbowfish, guppies, sharks, and other aquatic vertebrates. His research asks how fishes learn, remember, recognize predators, use social information, differ in personality, and how fish cognition can inform welfare, fisheries, and conservation. He is internationally recognized as a leading expert on fish cognition, was listed by Macquarie University as Australia’s most influential Animal Behaviour researcher in The Australian Research Magazine in both 2025 and 2026.
Contact email: culum.brown@mq.edu.au
Ellen C. Garland (she/her)
New Zealand-born marine biologist and Reader in the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews. Her study system is cetacean vocal communication, especially humpback whale song. Her research asks how animal culture, social learning, vocal learning, song structure, and bioacoustics shape whale communication and how acoustic similarity can inform conservation management. She is internationally recognized as a Royal Society University Research Fellow and National Geographic Explorer specializing in humpback whale song.
Contact email: ecg5@st-andrews.ac.uk
Kevin N. Lala (he/him or they/them; formerly Laland)
English evolutionary biologist and Professor in the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews. His study systems include monkeys, birds, fishes, and humans, with a focus on social learning, innovation, culture, and cognition. His research asks how animals and humans acquire behavior through social learning, how new traits spread through populations, and how niche construction, cultural evolution, and gene–culture coevolution shape evolutionary processes. He is internationally recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of Biology, recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, and author of books on biological and cultural evolution.
Contact email: knl1@st-andrews.ac.uk
Martin Wikelski
German biologist and Director of the Department of Migration at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, as well as Honorary Professor at the University of Konstanz. His study systems are globally migrating and moving animals, including birds, bats, tortoises, butterflies, and other species tracked through ICARUS, Movebank, and animal-borne sensors. His research asks how animals move, migrate, navigate, respond to environmental change, and how global tracking can create an “Internet of Animals” for conservation and ecological forecasting. He is internationally recognized as a Niko-Tinbergen Laureate, Bartholomew Laureate, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Adventurer of the Year, Leopoldina member, Max Planck Research Award recipient, and recipient of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg.
Contact email: wikelski@ab.mpg.de