heather brooks (mixed species flock)

I earned my PhD in 2025 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and I am currently a postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Peleg Lab. I am broadly interested in animal behavior, animal communication, complex social systems, and human-animal interactions. My research interests have always been tied to conservation efforts and maintaining global biodiversity. I discovered the field of animal behavior at the University of Illinois and have pursued this passion ever since. I am particularly interested in complex groups and their behavioral interactions with one another. This includes dominance relationships, playful interactions, and communication between species. I have collected behavioral data on terrestrial mammals, aquatic mammals, fish, insects, and songbirds, ​ My doctoral work focused on communication in mixed-species flocks of Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice in East Tennessee forests. I examined whether communication, particularly vocal output, could be

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• Yufei Xiao