My research program broadly explores how the internal and external environment influences an organism’s phenotype. I focus my work on highly evolved animal behaviors – namely, complex sociality and cognition. These traits require specialized integration of the social and physical environment to produce adaptive responses. As such, my research aims to uncover the physiological mechanisms that mediate social behaviors and cognition. Using integrative and comparative approaches, I apply work in the laboratory and field to address the mechanistic underpinnings of complex, ecologically relevant behaviors.