CEBUS Lab News
2023
We had a great 2023, with multiple awards (all listed below), several major grants submitted, 14 papers published, 22 presentations given, multiple milestones met, and a really impressive amount of service and outreach by the members of the lab. I’m very proud of everyone!
Congratulations to Jhonatan Saldaña, who just passed his general exam. Way to go, Jhonatan!
Congratulations to Matt Babb, who just had his first first authored publication, on the effect of complexity on capuchins’ choices in a dichotomous choice task, accepted in Animal Behaviour!
Congratulations to Sierra Simmons, who just had her first first authored publication, on the frequency effect in humans and capuchins, accepted in the Journal of Comparative Psychology!
Congratulations to Grace Ford, who won the outstanding poster presentation in Immunology at the ABRCMS conference, based on the work she did in her summer program at University of Pennsylvania.
Congratulations to Stella Mayerhoff, who just passed her General Exam (pioneering the new format!). Great job, Stella!
We had a very successful SEEHB 6 this week! Thanks to everyone who helped, but in particular Dr. Olivia Reilly, who came back from Harvard to chair the steering committee (again!!), and Jhonatan Saldaña, who was also on the steering committee.
Undergraduates Grace Ford and Heaven Varner both won summer research positions. Heaven completed the the AMGEN scholars' program at Cal Tech and Grace participated in the the University of Pennsylvania Summer Undergraduate Intern Program.
Matt Babb and I went to Costa Rica to work with Dr. Marcela Benítez on our project at Capucinos de Taboga.
Welcome to Bailey Villarreal and Chen Wei (Wally) Wu, who are joining the lab from the Neurophilosophy program. We’re glad to have you!
Congratulations to Grace Weyman Heller, who achieved Master Herpetologist certification by the Amphibian Foundation!
More congratulations to Stella Mayerhoff, who won GSU’s Three-minute thesis (3MT) competition, presenting her thesis on the Google effect!
Congratulations to Stella Mayerhoff, who successfully defended her Master’s thesis on the “Google effect” (otherwise known as cognitive offloading) in capuchin and rhesus monkeys.
Congratulations to Dr. Olivia Reilly, who won the Society for Neuroscience Trainee Professional Development Award!
We had a fantastic grant meeting in Davis, CA, with Dr. Karen Bales, Dr. Sarah Barber, Dr. Emily Rothwell, Dr. Meg Sosnowski, and Dr. Allison Lau.
Thanks to Sierra Simmons, who is the new Cognitive Sciences representative to the Graduate Association of Students in Psychology! She is joined by Matt Babb, who is one of the executive members.
Congratulations to Jhonatan Saldaña for winning this years Rumbaugh grant-in-aid! This is an award at the LRC which recognizes outstanding students studying emergents in non-human primates.
Congratulations to Matt Babb, for winning the ASP Outstanding Student talk award for his talk on his research on the extended market in capuchin monkeys! He is carrying on a long CEBUS lab tradition :-)
CEBUS lab members old and new had a great trip to Reno for the ASP conference!
Congratulations to Dr. Olivia Reilly, who won an F32 (NIH postdoctoral fellow award) for her work at Harvard with Dr. Erin Hecht!!
The CEBUS lab saw 600 people at the Kittredge Magnet School science night! We brought the discoid cockroaches and let the students run Y mazes to see what snack (Cheerios or Froot Loops!) cockroaches prefer.
Jhonatan Saldaña and I visited Dr. Ikuma Adachi and Dr. Sakumi Iki in at the Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies in Primatology in Inuyama, Japan, to develop our new project.
2022
And, rounding out a wonderful year, congratulations to Dr. Meg Sosnowski and Dr. Olivia Reilly for graduating with their PhDs!! The newly minted Dr. Sosnowski is moving to UC Davis, where she will do a postdoc with Dr. Karen Bales and the newly minted Dr. Reilly is moving to Harvard, where she will do a postdoc with Dr. Erin Hecht. We are incredibly proud of you both!!
Congratulations to Meg Sosnowski and Olivia Reilly for earning the Certificate of Excellence in College Teaching, Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Online Education
Welcome to our two new students, Grace Weyman Heller and Amanda Gellis. We are so excited to have them join the lab!! You can read all about them on their personal pages (linked above).
Congratulations to Mayte Martínez-Navarette for winning the ASP Ruppenthal travel award to attend the annual meeting in Denver, CO!
Dr. Gill Vale just had her paper exploring how squirrel monkeys respond to inequity in a social group accepted into Animal Behaviour; a group social context may lead to different reactions than are seen in dyads!
Congratulations to Dr. Olivia Reilly, who successfully defended her dissertation on the interaction between hormones, social context, and attentional biases in capuchin monkeys. We had a fantastic in person defense at the lab to celebrate a post-COVID defense!
Meg Sosnowski had her master’s project exploring how endogenous cortisol correlates with performance under pressure on a working memory task in capuchin monkeys in Scientific Reports!
Congratulations to our two honors students, both of whom did a fantastic job of doing honors theses under very difficult circumstances! Sedona Epstein, from Emory University, studied color vision perception in capuchin monkeys and CJ Andrews, from Georgia Tech, helped validate the infrared thermography camera and piloted a project exploring monkeys’ responses to inequity. Sedona spent the summer at Capuchins de Taboga and is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Oregon in Dr. Frances White’s lab and CJ spent the summer studying abroad and is now pursuing a masters in data technology at Georgia Tech. We will miss both of you.
2021
Congratulations to Meg Sosnowski, who won the ASP Outstanding Graduate Student Talk in Oklahoma City! Way to go, Meg!
More congratulations to Meg Sosnowski, who also won a APA Dissertation Research Grant. Meg had a great week!
Congratulations to Dr. Mackenzie Webster, who successfully defended her dissertation on the impact of prior experiences and social context on prosocial behavior in capuchin monkeys! Mackenzie ended a highly successful graduate career with a very strong defense, and we are really proud of her and excited to see all she will do in the future. Congratulations, Mackenzie!
Sarah Santiago, a University Scholar in our lab, was just elected as the Vice President of the Honor’s Student Organization Board!
Congratulations to Dr. Gill Vale, who has just begun as the Assistant Director of the Fisher Center, Lincoln Park Zoo! We are so excited to have yet another lab member make the journey north to join the LPZ family.
Congratulations to Olivia Reilly who won a Provost’s Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation project!
Dr. Walt Wilczynski’s and my edited volume, Cooperation and Conflict: The interaction of opposites in shaping social behavior, was just published by Cambridge University Press.
Mackenzie Webster has been awarded a FIRST Fellowship to work in Dr. Rob Hampton’s lab for her postdoc. Way to go, Mackenzie!
Congratulations to Mayte Martínez-Navarette, who won a Marietta-Blau Fellowship from the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research in Austria to spend a year in my lab studying capuchins as part of her dissertation. We’re thrilled to have her join us!
Congratulations to newly promoted and tenured Associate Professor Darby Proctor!!! She just received tenure at Florida Institute of Technology.
2020
Despite all 2020 threw at us, we have had many good things happen this year. Two fantastic new graduate students joined the lab, one graduated - and she and three other students or former students got permanent positions. As a lab, we got six grants or fellowships, published 13 papers, and got a book into press. There’s a lot that I hope is different in 2021, but it is wonderful to work in such a great lab!
Sarah Brosnan’s TED talk on fairness in monkeys went live!
Congratulations to our Honors student, Taylor Davis, who defended her honors thesis and presented it. She managed this despite the chaos of COVID disrupting her project. We are proud of her!
Congratulations to Mackenzie Webster, who was just awarded a GSU Dissertation Award!
Congratulations to Jhonatan Saldaña, who was just awarded the three year Southern Regional Education Board Dissertation Fellowship!
Amid all of the chaos, 2020 has brought us lots of fantastic news on the job front! This fall:
Dr. Kate Talbot started a position as an assistant professor of psychology at Florida Tech
Dr. Laurent Prétôt started a position as an assistant professor of psychology at Pittsburg State University, and
Dr. Julia Watzek started a position as a data scientist at audible.com.
We’re thrilled that all three of them found such wonderful positions and can’t wait to see what the future holds for them!
It is my pleasure to announce that Julia is now officially Dr. Julia Watzek! Julia successfully defended her dissertation this morning, via Zoom, and did a really excellent job. Her next stop is the Insight Data Fellowship Program to develop a new set of skills in the field of data science. Congratulations, Dr. Watzek!
Congratulations to Congratulations to Caleb Truscott! Caleb has been an undergraduate University Scholar in our lab since he was a freshman, and has successfully completed his honors thesis this spring and won the Biology University Scholar award. Way to go, Caleb!
We are very pleased to announce that Sierra Simmons and Matt Babb will join the lab in fall 2020! Matt and Sierra both bring experience from a variety of different settings and species and we are excited that they have chosen to come to GSU, where they will both be PSCEB Fellows. Welcome!
Congratulations to Dr. Marcela Benítez, who has just accepted an Assistant Professor position in the Department of Anthropology at Emory University. We’re very excited for Marcela!
Congratulations to Julia Watzek, who was selected for the very competitive Insight Data Science Fellowship! This is a fantastic postdoctoral program that will allow her to translate her analytical skills into the data science field. Congratulations, Julia!
Congratulations to Dr. Kate Talbot, who just accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at Florida Tech! She will join Dr. Darby Proctor in their growing program for animal behavior and cognition. We’re excited for Kate!
Drs. Marcela Benítez and Sarah Brosnan have been awarded a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to study the interplay between in-group cooperation and between-group competition in wild capuchins at Capuchinos de Taboga.
Dr. Audrey Parrish was recognized by Division 6 of the American Psychological Association as this year's Brenda A. Milner award winner. Congratulations to Audrey!
2019
Congratulations to Julia Watzek, who won the 2019 GSU Psychology Outstanding Graduate Student Research award!
We are pleased to announce that Drs Sarah Brosnan and Mike Beran are the new Co-Directors of the Language Research Center. We follow Directors Duane Rumbaugh and David Washburn and look forward to adding to the LRC’s legacy.
We had another very successful SEEHB! Thanks to Olivia Reilly, Stella Mayerhoff, Ryan Brady, Erik Ringen, Sarah Kovalaskas, and Caroline Jones for organizing the meeting, all of our speakers and poster presenters, and Dr. Marieke Gartner for a fantastic keynote.
Congratulations to Julia Watzek, who with Dr. Sarah Pope and myself just had a paper come out in Scientific Reports on cognitive flexibility in capuchin and rhesus monkeys and humans (the latter of whom are not as flexible!).
Thanks to Marilyn Norconk, John Mitani, Charlie Menzel, Melinda Novak, and Chuck Snowdon for a fantastic symposium on Pioneers in Primatology at ASP 2019 in Madison, WI. They gave a fantastic set of talks!
Congratulations to Meg Sosnowski, who successfully defended her thesis on how testosterone and cortisol interact with memory and “choking” in capuchin monkeys. Well done, Meg!
Welcome to Jhonatan Saldaña, one of our own undergraduates who is joining us this fall as a graduate student. We’re excited that he chose to stay here!
Our lab was just awarded an NSF DRMS grant to look at the impact of conflict on cooperation in non-human primates.
Congratulations to Olivia Tomeo Reilly, who successfully defended her thesis on the hormonal correlates of risk-taking behavior in capuchins using a modified BART task. Well done, Olivia!
Congratulations to Olivia Tomeo, who was awarded the Kuczaj Memorial Travel Grant from Conference on Comparative Cognition to travel to present her research at the CO3 annual meeting!
Welcome to Jessie Adriense, who is visiting our lab from the University of Vienna for the semester.
2018
Welcome to Matye Martínez Navarrete and Dr. Lauren Robinson, who have been accepted as a graduate student and postdoc, respectively, to work with me and Dr. Friederike Range on our FWF grant studying decision-making in wolves and dogs!
Congratulations to Dr. Marcela Benítez, Meg Sosnowski, and Olivia Tomeo, whose recent paper in the American Journal of Primatology was selected as the October 2018 paper of the month!
Congratulations to Olivia Tomeo, who won a travel grant to the Animal Behavior Society annual meeting!
Welcome to Stella Mayerhoff! We are glad to have her join our lab this year as our newest graduate student.
Congratulations to Caleb Truscott, who won a scholarship through the Honor's College and the Emertus Faculty to travel to Costa Rica this summer to do behavioral endocrinology on wild capuchin monkeys at Capucinos de Taboga.
2017
Congratulations to Caleb Truscott, who won the outstanding poster award in the Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference. Caleb must have set a record winning both the GSURC and PURC poster awards in the same year!
Congratulations to Dr. Laurent Prétôt, who successfully defended his dissertation, "Factors influencing species' performance in a cross-taxon comparative research program"! Laurent will be leaving in the fall to begin a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Katie McAuliffe in the Cooperation Lab at Boston College. Congratulations Laurent!
Congratulations to Dr. Marcela Benítez, who was just awarded her NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the hormonal underpinnings of cooperation and social behavior in capuchin monkeys! Marcela will be advised by Sarah and Dr. Meg Crofoot. Marcela also recently won an Honorable Mention in the Animal Behavior Society's Allee competition for the best student paper. This was a great week for Marcela!
Drs Sarah Brosnan, Bart Wilson, Steve Schapiro & Mike Beran were awarded an NSF grant, SES 1658867, "Collaborative Research: Impacts of social context and ecology on strategic decisions in dynamic interactions".
Dr. Darby Proctor recently participated in a workshop focused on sending humans to Mars, where she discussed the psychology of the astronauts and met Buzz Aldrin!
Congratulations to Audrey Parrish, whose paper in JEP: Animal Learning and Cognition, which was based on her dissertation, earned her the 2016 Early Career Award from the Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science (Division 3 of the American Psychological Association).
Congratulations to Caleb Truscott and Eric Le, whose poster won the best poster in the Social and Behavioral Sciences division of the Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference (GSURC). Way to go, Eric and Caleb!
Dr. Sarah Brosnan won this year's GSURC Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor award. Thanks to all of my fantastic undergraduates, who making my job a lot of fun!
Sarah Brosnan and Adrian Jaeggi hosted the first Southeastern conference on Evolution and Human Behavior at GSU in March. It was great weekend, and we hope that others can join us next year!
2016
Congratulations to Julia Watzek, who is this year's Rumbaugh Fellow for her work on how decision-making leads to emergent outcomes that would not necessarily have been predicted. Great job, Julia!
Congratulations to Laurent Prétôt, who won an APA Dissertation Fellowship. This year he has also published several papers that set up his dissertation. Way to go, Laurent!
Congratulations to Marcela Benítez, who successfully defended her dissertation at the University of Michigan!
One of our former undergraduates, Mari-Lyn Arbir, who is now a full time primate keeper at Zoo Atlanta. Congratulations to Mari-Lyn!
Welcome to Meg Sosnowski and Olivia Tomeo! Olivia and Meg are joining our team as first year graduate students this year. You can learn more about them on their personal pages.
Congratulations to Valentina Garzon, another of our outstanding undergraduates, who is now attending the Yale School of Law!
We (Sarah, Marcela Benítez, Meg Crofoot, Charlie Janson, and Clara Scarry) were awarded an NSF IBSS grant to study decision making in capuchin monkeys both at GSU and in Iguazú, Argentina. We're excited for the opportunity to do this project!
Big congratulations to Dr. Kate Talbot, who defended her dissertation! Dr. Talbot will leave us in May to start a postdoctoral fellowship at the UC Davis Primate Center working with John Capitanio, Karen Parker and Elliott Sheer on a project studying naturally occurring low-social rhesus monkeys as a model of ASD.
Congratulations to Aeslya Fuqua, one of our awesome undergraduates, who just accepted a position in the PhD program in Educational Psychology at GSU.
Sarah was this year's Outstanding Graduate Research Mentor for the College of Arts & Sciences. Thanks to my outstanding graduate students, who make my job a lot of fun!
Congratulations to Kate Talbot, who won this year's Richard Morrell Outstanding Graduate Student award from the Department of Psychology. Way to go, Kate!
Audrey Parrish has accepted a job as an Assistant Professor at the Citadel. Congratulations, Audrey!
Katie Hall has accepted a postdoc at the Chicago Zoological Society's Brookfield Zoo, where she is coordinating a study on chimpanzee welfare at 15 AZA-accredited institutions. Congratulations, Katie!
2015
Congratulations to Dr. Audrey Parrish, who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, An Investigation of Emergent Perceptual Phenomena in Primates: Illusions and Biases in Decision-Making. We are proud of Dr. Parrish!
A paper from our lab on the influence of personality on inequity responses in chimpanzees, featuring authors Lydia Hopper, Hani Freeman and Kate Talbot, was chosen as one of the featured papers of the month for Animal Behaviour and featured in an accompanying commentary by Editor Michelle Scott.
Dr. Darby Proctor accepted a job as Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Florida Institute of Technology, where she will be part of the animal behavior program and developing a research program at the Melbourne Zoo. Congratulations to Darby!
Sarah and co-PIs Tyrone Grandison, Katherine Jack, Sekou Remy, Tim Linkvayer, Julie Murrell, Stacey Tecot & Mark Hauber received a grant from the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI) program to study the mechanisms underpinning collective behavior.
Kate Talbot won the Outstanding Graduate Student Research award for the Psychology Department at GSU, a very well deserved recognition of all that she has accomplished at GSU. Congratulations, Kate!
Sarah won an Outstanding Faculty Achievement Awards from the College of Arts and Sciences of GSU.
Congratulations to Mari-Lyn Arbir for being chosen to graduate with distinction from the psychology department. Mari-Lyn is currently doing an internship at Zoo Atlanta.
Laurent Prétôt won a dissertation fellowship from GSU to go to French Polynesia to study wild cleaner fish decision-making as part of his dissertation comparing decision-making in highly cooperative cleaner fish and primates.
Sarah was appointed as a fellow of Division 3 of the APA. She is also serving on the awards committee for Division 3.
Kegan Isaack was chosen for the APA Division 3 pipeline program. This program allows him to be a student member of the APA while he pursues post baccalaureate work in animal cognition. Kegan graduated this spring with honors, having done his honors thesis in the CEBUS lab.
2014
A recent review on the evolution of fairness published in Science was nominated for Faculty of 1000 prime.
Sara Price graduated with her master's degree and accepted a job as a Research Ethics Program Associate with the APA. Congratulations to Sara!
Congratulations to Audrey Parrish, who won the Richard Morrell Outstanding Graduate Student award for the Psychology Department at GSU for her balance of research, teaching and service during her time at GSU.
Sarah was the plenary speaker at the annual Animal Behaviour Society annual meeting in Princeton, NJ.
Sarah was the inaugural recipient of the APA Division 6 Cleversys Early Career Award . She was also the program chair for the APA Division 3 program for the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and was elected as a member-at-large of Division 6 of the APA.
Kate Talbot received a dissertation fellowship from GSU to pursue her work on face recognition. She will extend her master's work on orangutans to look at face recognition in capuchin monkeys.
Sarah and co-PIs Mike Beran, Steven Schapiro, and Larry Williams received a grant from NSF (SES 1425216) to study factors that influence expectations about reward outcomes in monkeys, apes and humans.
Sarah and co-PI Becky Williamson received a grant from NSF (SES 1357605) to study how the sense of property develops in young children. We are using procedures Sarah earlier developed for chimpanzees to study children as, unlike previous procedures, these simplified procedures allow us to work with very young children with limited language abilities.
2013
Darby Proctor's paper on the ultimatum game in chimpanzees, published in PNAS, was featured with an accompanying commentary by Manfred Milinski.
Hani Freeman's paper on personality dimensions in chimpanzees was featured as the paper of the month in the American Journal of Primatology.
Laurent Prétôt was awarded a doc.mobility graduate fellowship from the Swiss Science Foundation to continue his graduate work at GSU. Congratulations, Laurent!
Sarah was one of the speakers at the Sackler Colloquium In the Light of Evolution VII: The Human Mental Machinery at the National Academy of Sciences Beckman Center, Irvine, CA. While she was there she also gave a Distinguished Voices lecture.
Catherine Eckel, Sarah, and Randy Nesse were awarded a workshop grant from the NSF (SES 1331418) to host a workshop to bring together biologists and economists to consider the interplay between cooperation and conflict.
The John Templeton foundation awarded a $3 million grant to a group led by Elliott Albers to study the role of oxytocin in human prosocial behavior. Sarah is leading the team studying the influence of oxytocin on decision-making in capuchin monkeys, rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees.
Congratulations to Kate Talbot, who won an APA dissertation fellowship to continue her work on face perception in non-human primates.
Congratulations to Laurent Prétôt, whose poster was the runner up for the APA Division 3 student poster award.
Audrey Parrish won the APA Division 3 Best Early Career Presentation at the fall meeting of the Comparative Cognition Society. Congratulations, Audrey!
Congratulations to Audrey Parrish, who won the Rumbaugh Fellowship. This fellowship will supplement her stipend while she completes her PhD work.
Sarah was appointed as a fellow of the APA, Division 6.
2012
Congratulations to Dr. Darby Proctor, who just became the first PhD student to graduate from my lab! She will be going to work with Dr. Frans de Waal as part of Emory University's FIRST program for her postdoc.
Sarah was a plenary speaker at the American Accounting Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Congratulations to Audrey Parrish, Sara Price and Laurent Prétôt, all of whom were chosen to be inaugural Primate Social Cognition, Evolution and Behavior fellows!
Congratulations to Terrell Jenrette, who was chosen to be a part of the Neuroscience Scholars program for the Society for Neuroscience.
Audrey Parrish and Kate Talbot were chosen to receive Rumbaugh Grants-in-aid to support their graduate research.
Congratulations to Mandy Riddle, who won an NIH IRTA postbac and will be working with Drs. Steven Suomi and Annika Paukner at NICHD.
Congratulations to Danny Fernandez, who was chosen to represent the GSU Honor's College at the Colonial Athletic Association's honors symposium.
Sarah won the Outstanding Junior Faculty award and the Outstanding Faculty Achievement award for the College of Arts and Sciences of GSU.
Sarah was elected secretary of the International Society for Justice Research.
2011
Congratulations to Kate Talbot for winning an NSF graduate research fellowship! These very competitive fellowships give her 3 years of stipend support. Congratulations also to Sara Price, who won an honorable mention in this year's competition.
Congratulations to Laurent Prétôt, who won a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue his dissertation work at GSU!
Darby Proctor received dissertation fellowships from both the APA and GSU for her work on risk perception in non-human primates and humans.
Sarah gave a talk about her research in the NSF SES Distinguished Lecture Series.
Sarah and co-PIs Bart Wilson, Steve Schapiro and Mike Beran were awarded a grant by NSF (SES 1123897) to extend our work studying the evolution of decision-making using games derived from experimental economics to compare the decisions of humans, chimpanzees, rhesus macaques and capuchin monkeys.
Lydia Hopper received a small grant from the American Society of Primatologists.
Audrey Parrish won Southern Society for Philosophy & Psychology student travel award.
Audrey Parrish was also recently chosen to be a member of the inaugural APA Graduate Student Science committee.
Sarah was chosen to be on the organizing committee for for 15th annual Kavli Chinese American Frontiers in Science program through the National Academies of Science.
Congratulations to Terrell Jenrette, who was chosen as a NET/work fellow!
Congratulations to Audrey Parrish, who won a student travel award to the annual Southern Society for Philosophy & Psychology annual meeting.
2010
Darby Proctor was chosen to receive a Rumbaugh Grant-in-aid to support her graduate research.
Sarah was one of the inaugural recipients of the Dean's Early Career Award for early career faculty with 10 years of their PhD.
The Language Research Center received a renewal of our NIH Program Project grant (P01HD060563). Sarah will work with PI Mike Beran and co-I Becky Williamson to explore how self-control influences decision-making in primates and children.
2009
Kate Talbot was chosen as the Bailey Wade Outstanding First Year Graduate Student for the department of psychology at GSU. Congratulations, Kate!
Sarah was awarded an NSF CAREER award (SES 0847351) to extend her work looking at the evolution of responses to inequity. In particular, she will extend the work to new species of primates to expand the comparative approach and will explore how different factors such as relationship and personality influence subjects' responses.
