Dr. Jen Christopher
Dr. Jen Christopher is a postdoctoral researcher and current Visiting Faculty at the University of South Alabama. She has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Northern Arizona and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi. She has participated in the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute at the University of St. Andrews where she was able to dip her toe into some AI modeling and theoretical work. She has worked with a number of animals from the more common (cats, dogs, hermit crabs) to the more exotic (bushbabies and lemurs) and is always looking to expand her repertoire. Her research interests range from conspecific aggression and other intraspecies social behaviors to synanthropization and synurbization. There is also a spattering of animal cognition research in the mix. Recent work includes documenting the use of grooming as an agonistic behavior in some strepsirhine primate species.
Dr. Lindsey Johnson
Dr. Lindsey Johnson is a postdoctoral researcher in the C3P0 Lab currently focused on studying positive emotion in apes and dolphins. She graduated from Georgia State University in 2008 with degrees in Psychology and Sociology and returned to school to receive a Ph.D. in Brain and Behavior Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2021. She also has hands-on experience with dolphin research through internships at the Dolphin Research Center and Dolphins Plus in the Florida Keys. Broader research interests include dolphin communication and cognition.
Joclyn Villegas
Joclyn Villegas is a PhD student at the University of South Alabama, who is conducting her dissertation in the C3PO lab under the guidance of Dr. Heidi Lyn. Fascinated by dolphin’s complex communication system, her work focuses on shedding light on the dynamics of whistle behavior, as well as dolphin cognition. She graduated with a Master of Professional Science from the University of Miami. Her thesis investigated signature and variant whistles of bottlenose dolphins pre, during and post parturition. During her early career, she conducted photo-identification and ecology studies at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies. It is her continued hope to advance our understanding of animal cognition and communication and to inspire young scientists to eventually contribute to the field.