Jordan Graves is a current PhD student in the Animal Behavior Graduate Group co-advised by both Dr. Brenda McCowan and Dr. Jeff Schank (Psychology). She is broadly interested in applying sophisticated social behavior analyses to inform conservation practices in both captive and wild settings. Her dissertation work is focused on using social network analysis and agent-based modeling to investigate individual decision-making in the Wood Duck (Aix sponsa). Working with Dr. John Eadie (Wildlife & Conservation Biology), she plans to parse apart the social factors that contribute to this species’ conspecific brood parasitism by comparing various genetic, familial, and affiliative networks.
Jordan received her B.S. in Ecology & Evolution with a minor in Neuroscience from Rice University in 2020, and received a Distinction in Creative Works & Research Award for her independent undergraduate thesis on the interaction between dominance hierarchies and social networks in captive Slender-Tailed Meerkats (Suricata suricatta). Prior to graduate school, she interned in the Los Angeles Zoo’s behavioral research department, observing animals like Asian elephants, orangutans, gharials, wombats, and more. She also worked as a wildlife biology consultant in the Bay Area where she helped catalogue endangered species including the San Francisco Garter Snake, California Red-Legged Frog, and California Tiger Salamander.
McCowan-Vandeleest Laboratory of Biobehavioral Complexity 