I was first gripped by research on animal behavior (literally!) as a swarm of bees chased me away from their hive in Costa Rica. Fortunately the bees I was studying were stingless. I would mark their backs with dots of paint to track individuals and their scent mark communication for my first M.Sc. project at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Although stingless, the bees could still give painful bites with their mandibles, and for my second M.Sc. project I switched to birds. Working with Simon Reader and Kevin Laland at St. Andrews University in Scotland, I studied the origin and spread of innovations in starlings. There I developed a passion for avian innovation and social learning. I also became inspired by the work of Louis Lefebvre, with whom I am now doing a Ph.D. at McGill University, Canada. I study novel foraging behavior and assortative mate choice, combining field work and lab experiments with Luc-Alain Giraldeau at Université du Québec à Montréal to investigate whether foraging innovations can drive mate choice and ultimately lead to sympatric speciation.

MEDIA

• Article: "Sing me something smart" - Nature News (Aug. 15, 2008)
• Listen to Neeltje's BBC interview on "Science in Action" (Aug. 22, 2008)
• Article: "Intelligence: Bird brains: Do simpler songs mean simpler minds?" - Globe and Mail (Aug. 30, 2008)
• Listen to Neeltje's interview on "Quirks and Quarks: Zebra finch IQ" - (Nov. 15, 2008)

Website: Carole Verdone-Smith, Image Centre, Department of Biology