Dr. Shauhin E. Alavi

Postdoc
Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies
Konstanz - Bücklestraße

Main Focus

I am an evolutionary anthropologist, interested in how animals interact with their environments, incorporating a balance of theoretical modeling and intensive field work.

I earned my PhD in Dr. Erin Vogel's Laboratory for Primate Dietary Ecology and Physiology at Rutgers University. My dissertation work focused on spatial and cognitive strategies orangutans use as they balance their macronutrient intake, where I generated high resolution maps of the orangutans' resource base, remotely sensing the nutritional properties of food with multispectral satellites

As a postdoctoral researcher, I study what constitutes foraging goals, what individuals know about their goals, and how individuals go about obtaining those goals. One of my two major projects is developing remote tracking solutions for monitoring rehabilitated great apes in an interdisciplinary collaboration with engineers and biologists.

In another collaboration - ‘Food for thought’ - we are taking a comparative look at spatial cognition and decision making in frugivorous mammals in Panama. During the dry season, spider monkeys, capuchins, kinkajous and coatis rely on the same limited fruiting trees. I want to compare how these competing species interact with their environment and how they acquire new information and use it to make decisions.

Besides science, I love my pets, martial arts, weight training, Latin dancing, digital arts and playing the guitar.

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