Freya was a postdoc in the lab from 2015-2017 and had the luxury of spending a considerable amount of time in the Yukon helping coordinate our research on the Kluane Red Squirrel Project. Her research focused on the effects of glucocorticoids on red squirrel behavior and the effects of maternal stress hormones on juvenile red squirrel development and life histories. Prior to joining the Dantzer lab, Freya completed an MSc. at Oxford where she studied Ethiopian wolves and a Ph.D. on zoonotic parasites in the genus Echinococcus at Salford University in the United Kingdom. Freya was quickly convinced that red squirrels provide a great model organism for asking questions about maternal stress effects and effects of stress on behavior as they can be trapped, marked and followed over the course oftheir lifetime. Because they are territorial and live on middens, this allows us to find and observe them with relative ease.
Contact Freya at freyavankesteren (AT) gmail.com