Education
Education timeline
Below you will find the timeline for the education I received from post-secondary institutions. The gap between my MSc. and PhD. is the result of a series of health issues that kept me from pursuing a PhD at that time. This delay has set me back quite some years in my professional development. However, I have picked up management and organizational skills along the way, but above all it has strengthened my resolve to pursue an academic career in the biological sciences. The fact that I found my way back to my passion, after quite a bit of adversity, serves as a testament to my dedication, resilience and drive. I believe these traits are an essential foundation to any academic career.
Relevant academic skills: experimental design, behavioural observation, academic presentation, teaching, statistical analysis, social network analysis, SPSS, R coding language, trapping/animal handling, laboratory safety, genetics (extraction and PCR), blood collection and processing, fieldwork (strenuous conditions), navigation (GPS), non-invasive technologies (GPS/proximity logger), critical thinking, academic writing, project management.
University of Manitoba, Canada (2022-now)
The objective of my thesis is to investigate the ultimate drivers and proximate mechanisms behind sociality in the unique social system of this promiscuous, egalitarian ground squirrel. Using a top-down approach, my thesis will be partitioned into the following chapters; 1) Environmental buffering: the adaptive capacity of sociality for buffering adverse climatic conditions, 2) Social structure of family groups: kinship discrimination and sex-biased dispersal, 3) Social cognition: male vs female cognitive capacity, and 4) the role of Oxytocin in Cape ground squirrel sociality. By consolidating these distinct perspectives on sociality, I work towards a comprehensive framework integrating environmental drivers, social network structures and underlying mechanisms of a system characterized by features that are underrespresented in previous research on sociality. With this framework, I aim to further our understanding of the role of promiscuity, sex-biased dispersal and social hierarchies in the evolution of flexible social systems.
Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands (2013-2016)
My master’s program was research-oriented. I did a major (9 months) research project in the Netherlands and a minor (6 months) research project in South Africa, These projects taught me how to develop and execute a behavioural study.
Minor research project: Personality and reproductive strategies in male Cape ground squirrels
Major research project: Comparing stress-related and abnormal behaviour of zoo-reared Barbary macaques with rescued individuals
Thesis: “Morality deconstructed: the how and why of moral systems”
Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands (2009-2013)
During my undergraduate studies I gained a broad knowledge base covering a wide diversity of biological topics such as: microbiology, biotechnology, evolution, systems biology, developmental biology, genetics, behavioural ecology.
Thesis: “A comparison of personality in humans and animals”