A season of transitions

  • October 1, 2012
A season of transitions

This is the time of year when birds change their plumage: they lose their old feathers, which are tattered from defending their nests and young during the previous few months, and they grow new ones. This year, I am going through a moulting season as well: I finished my PhD and will begin a post-doctoral fellowship in California in the fall.

Doing my PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar was even more extraordinary than I had imagined. I discovered what birds in the crow family do after they fight: rooks and jackdaws sit near their partners for support after fighting with someone else. Mates have extremely strong bonds year-round, rarely leaving each other’s side, and often intervening in conflicts on behalf of their partner. During my time at Cambridge, some of my strongest social bonds were with Gates Scholars, and the exchange of social support has led to timely collaborations. I attended the Gates Scholar/Alumni trip to the US Ambassador’s residence in London in 2012 and started chatting with the Gates Scholar sitting next to me on the bus. By the time we returned to Cambridge we discovered that I had the resources she was looking for to expand her project and vice versa, and we are now enjoying the benefits of our chance meeting on the Gates bus.

I consider myself fortunate to be going from one outstanding and interdisciplinary community to another. I will become a Junior Research Fellow at the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara this fall where I will study wild bird cognition. The Sage Center investigates the brain and mind by engaging as many disciplines as possible, and the fellowship will allow me to carry out my dream project: to investigate whether sophisticated cognition exists outside of large-brained birds using great-tailed grackles as a model system.

As we all know, Bill Gates Sr. is also transitioning from the Gates community, having stepped down from a twelve-year Trusteeship in June 2012. On his last trip to Cambridge as a Trustee, my PhD supervisor, Nicky Clayton, and I had the pleasure of giving him, Mimi Gardiner Gates, and other Trustees a tour of the aviaries where I did my PhD research. Nicky has developed a leading animal cognition lab so the tour included footage of the birds solving complicated tasks, meeting the stars of the show to feed them peanuts and larvae, and discussing the work that has come from the lab over the last 15 years. It was a memorable occasion to send us off to our next adventures.

*Corina Logan[2008] did a PhD in Experimental Psychology. Photo caption: Corina feeding Rome, a Eurasian jay, one of the species she studied during her PhD. Photo credit: Julia Leijola.

 

Latest Blogs

How Cambridge Analytica influenced Nigeria’s elections

My research broadly tackles questions of technology, equity, and accountability within the Global South. I emphasise the West’s use of sub-Saharan Africa as a testing ground or laboratory for its nascent technologies before launching them in the West. This blog is an excerpt from my recent presentation at the 2022 Gates Day of Research, titled […]

Why algorithms are necessarily value-laden

Algorithmic decision-making systems applied in social contexts drape value-laden solutions in an illusory veil of objectivity. Machine learning plays an increasingly prominent role in mediating institutional decisions in everything from corporate hiring practices to criminal sentencing. This ongoing AI spring has invigorated discussions of the ethical dimensions of these techno-social arrangements. In particular, there is […]

Preparing for all scenarios in an unstable world

On March 9th, Mohamed A. El-Erian joined the Gates Cambridge community for a virtual fireside chat, where he discussed decision-making in conditions of uncertainty, the economic impact of the pandemic and relief efforts and the importance of diversity of thought and scenario planning. El-Erian is President of Queens’ College, Cambridge and Chief Economic Advisor of […]

How can the international community help Belarus?

Last Sunday represented a tipping point in the recent history of Belarus which has had an immediate effect on the lives of its citizens, including mine. Independent exit polls and observers representing the diplomatic community, verified by the crowdsourcing platform Golos, show that, had it been a fair and transparent election, the uninterrupted, 26-year-long reign […]