Sarah Westrick is a behavioral ecologist interested in integrative methods to understand the influence of the early life environment on animal behavior and physiology. Her research in the Dantzer Lab from 2015-2020 focused on the influence of mothers on offspring behavior and stress physiology. Mammalian mothers, in particular, play a large part in the early life environment of their offspring. Sarah addressed variation in how mothers care for their pups and what that variation means for the growth rate, behavior, stress hormone axis, and survival of her pups. With the Kluane Red Squirrel Project, she was able to track known offspring of mothers throughout their development.
Sarah is now an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Eva Fischer at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.