M.Sc. in Evolution and Behaviour Candidate University of Lethbridge B.Sc. Hon. Specialization in PsychologyUniversity of Western Ontario

I have always been fascinated with nature and life but it was not until I encountered a detailed explanation of evolution in high school biology did I have an answer for some of the questions of my childhood. Questions like, why was there so many marsupials in Australia? And why do camels and llamas look so similar yet live on seperate continents?

In my undergrad I was drawn to the sciences and I took a first year psychology course not sure on what to expect. I found psychology so interesting because the questions asked about our minds, brains and behaviour were so important and difficult to answer. After a guest lecturer in my seond year evolution course presented research from evolutionary psychology I knew that this area of research was a perfect fit. In my final year I conducted my undergrad honors thesis at the University of Western Ontario on starling song attractiveness and the handicap hypothesis involving the use of various cognitive tasks with Dr. Scott-MacDougall-Shackleton.

I am currently a part of the behaviour and evolution research group at the University of Lethbridge under the supervision of Dr. Drew Rendall. I was drawn to the University of Lethbridge because of the core group of researchers here specializing in evolutionary psychology. I am currently working on the evolution of language and specifically looking into biophonetics. Certain sounds of language may be part of an innate perceptual and cognitive bias which can bootstrap language acquisition and affect which words survive the attrition of lexicon change.