LAB NEWS
2024: Welcome to Mariana Quintero, who joins the lab as a PhD student!
2024: Cassie attends the Vision 2024: Building Bridges in Visual Ecology workshop at Buxted Park in Sussex, England.
2024: David Ocampo is an author on a new paper introducing a remarkable, world-wide data set of acoustic soundscape measurements collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Check it out here.
2024: Led by Monica Carlson, our new paper showing that woodpeckers are more cryptic against the bark on which they forage is out now in Animal Behavior!
2024: Congratulations to Zian Jia and David Ocampo, whose poster received the top prize at the “Fracture Across Fields” workshop held at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science.
2024: Congratulations to Audrey Miller, who received grants from the American Ornithological Society and the American Society of Naturalists to support her summer fieldwork on hummingbird courtship.
2024: David Ocampo received a grant from the Princeton Program in Latin American Studies to support summer fieldwork on tinamous in South America. Congratulations!
2024: The Stoddard Lab celebrates spring in Princeton.
2024: Cassie gives a seminar on hummingbird behavior and conservation to the Washington Crossing Audubon Society.
2024: David Ocampo, with colleagues at the Institute Humboldt, just published an atlas for all endemic birds in Colombia! Check it out here.
2023: Cassie is honored to have been named to Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” list for 2023.
2023: Our new paper, led by Monica Carlson, on the evolution of plumage patterns in woodpeckers is out now in American Naturalist! We introduce a 3D pattern morphospace, based on biologically relevant pattern features, that can be used to study complex animal patterns in diverse taxa.
2023: We hosted the first-ever BirDiversity Art Exhibition! BirDiversity was a celebration of science, art and ornithology in the Princeton community. The exhibit featured almost 90 works of art submitted by university faculty, staff, students and their families. Read more about the event and explore all of the featured artwork here.
2023: Congratulations to Dr. Jarome Ali, who defended a stellar PhD thesis on the evolution of plumage color in parrots!
2023: Congratulations to Dr. Klara Nordén! Klara defended a superb PhD thesis on the evolution of structural color in birds, with a focus on iridescence and metallic luster.
2023: With the Hummingbird Conservation Network, Sarah, Ben and Cassie helped to organize part of a workshop held in Arizona intended to bolster interactions between conservation biologists, hummingbird banders and researchers.
2023: The Stoddard Lab visits the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia for birding, hiking
and a visit to the Mountain Lake Biological Station.
2023: Welcome, newcomers! We are excited to have PhD student Katja Kochvar, postdoc Zian Jia and lab manager and outreach coordinator Laz Lazarova joining the lab!
2023: Many members of the Stoddard Lab conducted summer hummingbird fieldwork in Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico. Our team at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory included Sarah, Audrey, Ben, Harold, Michelle, Tobias, Chloe, Alice and Trang.
2023: Our hummingbird work was featured in Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Living Bird Magazine. Check it out!
2023: Check out two new papers from the Stoddard Lab!
The first, led by David Ocampo and co-authored by Thilina De Silva, explores the evolution of nest architecture in flycatchers and their relatives. This paper is out now in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The second, led by Derya Akkaynak, shows that common cuckoos—the avian wizards of egg color and pattern mimicry—do not mimic the size and shape of host eggs. This paper is out now in Behavioral Ecology.
2023: Congratulations to Dr. Monica Carlson, who defended an excellent PhD thesis on the evolution of woodpecker plumage patterns!
2023: Happy Spring from the Stoddard Lab!
CLIMATE CHANGE & BIODIVERSITY LOSS
2023: Check out a short video, made by the High Meadows Environmental Institute, featuring our work on hummingbirds and climate change in the Colorado Rockies, as well as work from the Levine Lab.
2023: The Stoddard Lab is staying busy, with recent trips to the Field Museum in Chicago to study eggs and to California for hummingbird fieldwork.
2022: Klara Nordén and Audrey Miller give talks at the Sensorium Meeting at the University of Cincinnati!
2022: Check out our new paper, led by Audrey Miller and co-authored by Ben Hogan, on how to create and animate 3D models of bird specimens complete with bird-visible color information. The paper is out now in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution!
2022: Cassie and the Li Lab (Virginia Tech) host an “Eggxtreme Bird Eggs” event as part of the Black Engineering Excellence at Virginia Tech Program. Check out the Teaching & Outreach page for photos.
2022: Members of the Stoddard Lab head to the Mountain Lake Biological Station in Pembroke, Virginia, to study Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.
AOS/BC Award Winners 2022. Image copyright AOS.
2022: Congratulations to Jarome Ali and Rosalyn Price-Waldman, who received awards for their talks at the 2022 American Ornithological Society & Birds Caribbean Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Also check out Jarome’s latest paper from his Master’s work, which shows that bird extinctions might particularly threaten species that are functionally and morphologiclally distinct.
2022: The Stoddard Lab is pleased to welcome Sarah Solie (postdoc) and Sumudu Fernando (postdoc and senior lab technician)!
2022: Cassie is very honored and excited to be selected as a 2022 Schmidt Science Polymath!
2022: The Stoddard Lab heads to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory to research Broad-tailed Hummingbirds and the flowers they pollinate. Our crew this year included Cassie, Ben, Harold, Sarah and Audrey—and undergraduates Dom, Tobias and Darcy.
2022: Congratulations to our two terrific graduating seniors, Darlene Barrios and Madison Hamilton! Darlene was mentored by Rosalyn Price-Waldman and Madison was mentored by Monica Carlson.
2022: Congratulations to the Princeton Tiger Shrikes! This team of Princeton Birding Society members won first place in New Jersey Audubon’s World Series of Birding competition on May 14, 2022. The team identified 205 species in 24 hours. This is the first time Princeton has competed in the event. The team included (left to right): Alex Wiebe, Kojo Baidoo, Patrick Newcombe, Claire Wayner, David Dorini and Julian Gottfried. Read more here and here.
2022: It’s spring! Time for the annual Stoddard Lab photo by the Eno Hall cherry blossoms.
2022: Cassie presents High Meadows Environmental Institute Faculty Seminar, “Inside the Colorful World of Birds and their Eggs.”
2022: Congratulations to Rosalyn Price-Waldman, Klara Nordén and Audrey Miller! Rosalyn received a Rosemary Grant Advanced Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution. Klara received a research grant from the British Ornithologists’ Union. Audrey received a student research grant from the Animal Behavior Society.
2021: Our new paper, led by Klara Nordén, on the evolution of iridescent feather nanostructures is out in eLife! Read more in this article featuring photos by David Ocampo.
2021: Several Stoddard Lab members gave excellent research talks at the virtual Living Light conference on vision and optics in nature. Congratulations to Audrey Miller, whose talk received special recognition.
2021: The Stoddard Lab visits Cape May to observe the fall migration!
2021: Cassie gave a talk on the Soft & Living Matter of Birds at the Princeton Phase Behavior and Soft Matter Meeting.
2021: The Stoddard Lab is excited to kick off the new academic year.
2021: The Stoddard Lab welcomes PhD student David Ocampo and postdoc Thilina De Silva!
2021: Our new review paper, led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, on avian color genetics is out now in the Journal of Heredity. The cover image (see right) features a photo of bird eggs taken by new PhD student David Ocampo.
2021: Check out our new paper on signaling geometry and animal communication, by Audrey Miller, Cassie and colleagues.
This paper was the result of a special year-long SICB workshop on the spatiotemporal dynamics of animal signals.
2021: The Stoddard Lab returns to RMBL! Cassie, Ben and Audrey, along with undergraduates Darcy, Julian and Kojo, conduct fieldwork on hummingbird color vision, courtship and foraging behavior.
2021: Congratulations to Rosalyn and Jarome for being awarded Student Research Awards from the American Ornithological Society! Rosalyn also received a 2021 Chapman Research Grant from the American Museum of Natural History.
2021: Congratulations to graduating seniors Alice Egar and Joe Kawalec! For her thesis on temporal dimensions of hummingbird foraging behavior, Alice received the EEB Sigma Xi Prize for an Outstanding Research Thesis. For his thesis on woodpecker crypsis and signaling—and environmental activism on campus—Joe received the T. A. Barron Prize in Environmental Leadership Prize.
Joe was mentored by PhD student Monica Carlson. Read more about their research in this article.
2021: Cassie gave an invited talk on eggshell evolution, biophysics and mechanics at the American Physical Society March Meeting in a special session on biomaterials.
2021: Cassie was delighted to deliver the 2021 International Day of Women and Girls in Science lecture hosted by the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
2021: Jarome and Audrey gave superb talks at the virtual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting. Cassie gave a talk as part of a symposium on the spatiotemporal dynamics of animal communication.
2020: Cassie is honored to receive the 2020 Animal Behavior Society Outstanding New Investigator Award and to be elected as a Fellow in the American Ornithological Society.
2020: Rosalyn gave an excellent talk at the North American Ornithological Congress (NAOC) on her master’s work in the Burns Lab on tanager evolution, on the heels of publishing a paper in Evolution on plumage color complexity and speciation rates.
2020: Our new paper showing that wild hummingbirds can discriminate nonspectral colors is out in PNAS! Our team included Cassie, Harold Eyster (University of British Columbia), Ben Hogan (Princeton), Dylan Morris (Princeton), Ed Soucy (Harvard) and David Inouye (University of Maryland and RMBL).
For more details, check out these articles: Princeton, New York Times, National Geographic, CNN, and Smithsonian.
And listen to the story on Science Friday Radio.
2020: Klara Nordén received a Lewontin Early Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution to support her work on feather iridescence.
2020: The Stoddard Lab celebrated its four terrific graduating seniors, recalling sunny times in Fall 2019. Congratulations, Barrett, Kristie, Cole and Annika!
2020: Check out our new paper on egg pattern identity signals in alcids, co-authored by Lilly Quach (‘19), Audrey, Ben and Cassie.
2020: Undergrad Cole Morokhovich (‘20) is featured in an article and video describing his excellent thesis research on hummingbirds and climate change at RMBL.
2020: The Stoddard Lab stays connected by Zoom and attempts the annual springtime photo.
2020: Cassie and Klara attend the Society for Integrative Comparative Biology (SICB; Austin, Texas) meeting. Cassie is honored to receive the 2020 Bartholomew Award and to give the annual Bart Lecture. Klara gives a super talk on the evolution of feather iridescence.
2019: Cassie is honored to give plenary talks at the 2019 Association for the Study of Animal Behavior (ASAB; University of Konstanz) and Sensorium (University of Illinois) meetings.
2019: Derya Akkaynak is named a 2019 Regional Finalist in the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists program. Congratulations, Derya! Check out the video and announcement here.
The Stoddard Lab celebrates with Derya at the New York Academy of Sciences annual gala (right).
2019: Audrey Miller and Rosalyn Price-Waldman join the lab as PhD students. Welcome!
2019: The Stoddard Lab heads to the Colorado Rockies for hummingbird fieldwork at RMBL.
2019: Monica Carlson receives awards from the American Ornithological Society and from the American Museum of Natural History to conduct fieldwork on woodpeckers.
2019: Jarome Ali receives awards from the Zoological Lighting Institute and the Princeton Program in Latin American Studies to investigate parrot color and behavior.
2019: Can you imagine what color looks like to a bird? Listen to Cassie (with colleague Allison Shultz from the LA Natural History Museum) on NPR Science Friday.
2019: Check out our new collaborative papers on egg shape evolution and avian color vision.
2019: It’s spring again in Princeton!
2019: What pattern cues do host birds use to reject parasitic eggs? Read our new paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
2019: New synthesis article on animal coloration patterns and spatial vision is out now in American Naturalist.
2018: Check out our new study about the dynamics and perception of a spectacular hummingbird courtship dive, out now in Nature Communications.
2018: Our new paper investigating how animals perceive experimental stimuli is out now in Interface Focus.
2018: Cassie is very honored to be named a 2018 Packard Fellow.
2018: Klara Nordén joins the lab as a PhD student. Welcome!
2018: The Stoddard Lab attends the International Society for Behavioural Ecology conference in Minneapolis, and the Evolution in Philadelphia Conference (EPIC). Excellent talks by Ben, Monica, Jarome and Audrey!
2018: The Stoddard Lab conducts hummingbird fieldwork at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado.
2018: Watch Cassie on Attenborough's Wonder of Eggs, which just aired on the BBC in the UK. Out on PBS in the US Fall 2018.
2018: Cassie named a 2018 Sloan Research Fellow.
2018: The Stoddard Lab enjoys springtime weather in Princeton.
2018: Derya Akkaynak joins the lab. Welcome!
2018: Science's egg infographic is nominated for a Webby!
2017: Jarome Ali and Monica Carlson join the Stoddard Lab as PhD students. Welcome!
2017: Our research article, Avian egg shape: Form, function and evolution, is out in Science. Check out the infographic.
Birds lay eggs in a diverse array of colors, patterns, sizes, and shapes, as seen in this assortment from the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology collection.
© Frans Lanting
2017: Our theme issue, Animal Coloration: production, perception, function and application, is out in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
2017: Audrey Miller and Ben Hogan join the lab. Welcome!
2016: New popular media article out in Physics World featuring our work on cuckoo egg mimicry.
2016: A video about our egg recognition research is on display (through January 2017) at the American Museum of Natural History's Dinosaurs Among Us exhibit in New York City.
2016: Our new paper on egg camouflage in plovers and terns is out! Contact us to use our EdgeDetector computer code, which quantifies aspects of camouflage using edge detection algorithms.
2016: Cassie awarded the Ned K. Johnson Young Investigator Award by the American Ornithologists' Union.
2016: Cassie awarded the Dobzhansky Prize by the Society for the Study of Evolution. She delivered the Dobzhansky Prize Lecture at the SSE meeting in Austin, Texas.