Congratulations Jamie!!

PhD viva: done ✔️
Yesterday I passed my viva with minor corrections!
I’m so grateful to the many people who supported me along the way - including my supervisors, family, and friends.
I’m looking forward to refining my thesis and getting it out in the world 🥳🐵

This is great, thanks Antonio!!

I recently heard that setting up a website might help with postdoc hunting and I’m looking for examples! Do you have one? Share here so I can snoop 👀

Anddd a picture of my youngest study subject for the algorithm 🐵

Thanks to my supervisors and co-authors Annika Paukner, Samantha Ward and @bridgetwaller.bsky.social as well as the Primate and Ape teams at Twycross Zoo
Please reach out if you'd like more details - I'm happy to discuss! (5/5)

Overall, this provides initial evidence that Active Choice paradigms may be useful for studying mood in bonobos, with potential applications for both theory and welfare assessment.
Link to preprint: lnkd.in/eWycbVPw
(4/5)

In contrast, bonobos made more optimistic choices:
🟢 on days when they played more
🟢 when in larger social groups
These patterns suggest that responses in the task tracked meaningful day-to-day variation in affective state. (3/5)

The task allowed us to disentangle low motivation from negative mood, a limitation of many existing paradigms.
Across individuals, bonobos showed more pessimistic choices:
🔴 with increased testing sessions
🔴 on days when they displayed more abnormal behavior
(2/5)

I’m excited to share the preprint of the first publication from my PhD research, which is on judgement bias and affect in zoo-housed bonobos.
We developed a novel Active Choice judgement bias task—something that, to our knowledge, has not previously been used successfully with great apes (1/5)

It’s a bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) not a grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) 🦭

Spent the last two days in Bristol for @asab-meetings.bsky.social where I presented my PhD research on facial expressions and affect in bonobos 🐵🌡️

Thank you to the organizers and everyone who attended for such a fun and interesting conference - can’t wait for the next one!!

A collage of speakers at the podium with their talks in the background

Great talks this morning at #ASABSpring2026 on horse-rider conflicts, paca farm welfare, bonobo facial expressions, free-ranging dog feeding, AI for horse welfare, fruit fly mating & butterfly memory 🏇🧑‍🌾 🙊🐕🐴🪰🦋

Happy to share this recent publication from data collected while I was a research assistant at Brookfield Zoo Chicago. We examined whether animals display stereotypic behaviors interchangeably by looking at pacing and route tracing in two polar bears 🐻‍❄️ Check it out!
www.jzar.org/jzar/article...

My timeline is 99% ✨her✨ and I couldn’t be happier. Absolute star material 🐮

I had a great time at the PSGB winter conference where I presented on the development of a novel judgement bias task in apes and it was so rewarding to share the first major findings from my thesis.
Thank you to the organizers and presenters for an engaging conference a fun location🐒❄️

Thank you bringing your knowledge, enthusiasm, and hope to this year's Winter Meeting at National Museum Cardiff. We hope to see you all next year!