Culture Conference 2024 is being organised by a committee of postdocs at the University of Zürich. Find out a little more about them below!
Elisa Bandini
I am a postdoc at the University of Zürich as of April 2023. Alongside Sofia Forss, I will be working on understanding the effect of previous research on captive chimpanzee cognition and behaviour, and how this phenomenon affects our interpretation of findings from different populations of captive chimpanzees.
Rahel Brügger
I am a postdoc in the Evolutionary Cognition Group working on the ERC Project ENGINE where we are investigating the consequences of interdependance in cooperatively breeding common marmosets to further our understanding of why human minds are so unique. I am very interested in applying non-invasive experimental approches that help us gain insight into animals arousal levels and I love all things R and data analysis.
When I am not watching monkeys I like being creative while sewing, spending time in nature with my dog and playing basketball!
Twitter: @rkbruegger
Sofia Forss
My research focuses on what makes animals explorative and creative, thus increasing their ability to innovate. I am particularly curious about curiosity. Why does it play such a big role for humans? How is it expressed in non-human species? One of my main interests lies in developmental processes and how variation during ontogeny can influence curiosity and other cognitive processes.
Stuart Watson
I am a postdoc the University of Zürich whose work explores how animals ability to learn from and communicative with one another, and what this can tell us about our own evolutionary origins. I am part of the NCCR Evolving Language team, where I explore the evolutionary origins of arbitrariness in language. In my free time I enjoy watching animals, playing board-games and cozy cups of tea.
Twitter: @ChimpsAhoi
Culture Conference 