News

Congrats to Grace and Amy for presenting their projects on chimpanzee cognition and behavior at the 2025 UROP Symposium!

The Cognitive Evolution Group celebrated the end of a great year, and our graduating students, with a lab party! Special congrats to graduating seniors Isabelle, Tiffany, and Lila!

Along with Dr. Felix Warneken at the Social Minds Lab, we are accepting applications for a joint full-time research technician to coordinate and conduct research on cognition in children, adults, and nonhuman primates (75% Social Minds Lab, 25% Cognitive Evolution Group). This position provides extensive research experience and is ideal for recent college graduates who are considering attending graduate school in the future.

• Read more about the position and application materials and process here.
• Find the online application portal here.
• Applications will start being reviewed on a rolling basis on May 5.

Congrats to Isabelle for winning the Weinberg Cognitive Science Symposium best poster award, and for being selected as a W. B. Pillsbury Prize recipient, for her undergraduate thesis project on the evolution of possession in monkeys!

Rosa, Skylar, and Charlie presented work on food transfers, tool use, and social attention in sanctuary and wild chimpanzees at the 2025 American Association of Biological Anthropologists in Baltimore!

Mayte Martínez recently joined the group as a new postdoctoral fellow. Welcome!

Lab postdoctoral alum Natalie Awad Schob recently started a new position as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University, and lab coordinator alum Isabelle Monroe started a graduate program in teaching at University of New Mexico. Congrats all on the new positions!

Members of the Cognitive Evolution Group are at the Cay Santiago Biological Field Station this summer conducting studies of monkey cognition.

The Cognitive Evolution Group celebrated the end of a great year, and our graduating students, with a lab party!

Congratulations to Dr. Cantwell for a great defense talk on her research, entitled “The evolution of executive function in primates: an individual differences approach.”

Lab postdoctoral alum Margaret Bryer recently started a new position as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Wisconsin. Grad student alum Yiyun Huang started a new mentoring and coordination position at UMich LSA Connect. Lab coordinator alum Natalia Camargo Peña started a posiiton as a PhD student in Anthropology at Stony Brook University. Undergrad alum Nami Kaneko started as a lab manager in the Desrochers Lab at Brown University. Undergrad alum Ariana Mistry recently accepted a position as a lab manager at the APE Lab at Emory University. Congrats all on the new positions!

Tufts alum Charlie MacKenzie and lab undergrad alum Skylar Brodnan recently joined the group as new lab coordinators. Welcome!

Skylar won the Virginia L. Voss Memorial Award for excellence in writing by senior Honors women for her anthropology thesis “Origins of human Cclture: Individual variation and social influence in wild chimpanzee tool use.” Congrats Skylar!

Margaret and Averill presented some of our group’s work on chimpanzee cognition and behavior at the 2023 American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference, and celebrated with our collaborators from the Kibale Chimpanzee Project!

The Cognitive Evolution Group celebrated the end of a great year, and our graduating seniors, with a lab party!