Daan earned his PhD in 2023 from the University of Antwerp for his work on the function of positive emotions in bonobos. At the COMPARE lab, he is studying virtual tool use and the impact of positive emotions on cognition and sociality in great apes. He is currently working with bonobos at the Planckendael Zoo and is developing new projects with chimpanzees and orangutans at the Indianapolis Zoo.

We’re hiring a postdoc to lead the work on dog cognition. If you’re interested in applying, please reach out to Erica Cartmill by email: ericac(at)iu.edu

Jina is a developmental psychology PhD student at UCLA. Her work examines the relationship between spatial language and cognition and the impact of social relationships with adults on children’s learning. Jina is co-supervised by Catherine Sandhofer, and is part of the UCLA Language and Cognitive Development Lab.

Emma is a PhD student in Anthropology. She studies social cognition in great apes. Her current projects focus on playful teasing in wild chimpanzees and the ways zoo-housed chimpanzees perceive and interact with human visitors. Before joining the lab in 2024, Emma graduated from Grinnell College and was the lab manager for Brian Hare’s Canine Cognition Center at Duke University.

Kelsey is a PhD student in Anthropology. Her interests include social cognition, non-verbal communication, and development in great apes and human children. Prior to joining the lab, she graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. in Cognitive Science and studied math concept development in young children. 

Sophia is a PhD student in anthropology. She is interested in social cognition, iconicity, gesture production and comprehension in neurotypical and atypical development, and language evolution. Prior to joining the lab, Sophia received her bachelor's in linguistics from UCSB and her MSc (Research) in cognitive neuroscience from Radboud University in the Netherlands. 

Ying is a PhD student in Cognitive Science. She studies concept formation and reasoning in children. She plans to expand this work to other species during her PhD work. Before joining the lab in 2024, Ying studied at the National University of Singapore where she completed a study of social cognition in dolphins.

Tiffani is a visiting PhD student in philosophy from UC Santa Barbara. She is interested in animal cognition, especially the nature of non-human animal grief. Her current project is focused on separation anxiety and reunion behaviors in dogs.

Doğa is a first-year PhD student in the Cognitive Science Program. She is interested in social cognition, particularly signalling, copying, and imitation, and how organisms integrate cues from their environment and from others' behavior into their own decisions. Her prior work has examined this question in humans (adaptive mate preferences and social information use in mate choice), acorn ants (tandem running and collective decision making), and dogs (overimitation). In the COMPARE, she plans to extend this comparative approach to social cognition in other species.

nbaskin@iu.edu

Noah is our lab Manager. He is interested in the development of curiosity and self-concept in early childhood and across species. Before joining the lab, he earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychological & Brain Sciences from UCSB in 2025. His previous research experience includes working as a research assistant at the Centre for Early Childhood Cognition at the University of Copenhagen, where he studied curiosity in early childhood.

Wildlife Education Coordinator

Katie's wildlife journey started at the Ledón-Rettig lab where she worked as an undergraduate researcher studying spadefoot toads. After, she became a state and federally permitted wildlife rehabilitator working with almost all native species. While she is passionate about all animals, eastern box turtles and opossums have a special place in her heart. Also pictured is Kaos, an ambassador Harris Hawk and her previous partner in conservation education.

Wildlife Outreach

Angel is a registered veterinary technician and in training to become a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Indiana. She has a strong passion for opossum behavior and medicine. Her interests center on public education and outreach focused on coexistence strategies with a variety of wildlife species.

Wildlife Outreach

Grace is an Indiana-licensed wildlife rehabilitator with a strong interest in eastern North American bat behavior and field ecology. Her current work centers on the rehabilitation and release of native bat species, along with public education and outreach focused on bat conservation. She also uses her background to guide humane, behavior-based approaches to resolving human-wildlife conflicts, particularly with squirrels, roosting bats, and opossums.