Elizabeth Hobson
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elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Elizabeth Hobson
@elizabethhobson.bsky.social
2.5K followers 1.5K following 140 posts
Associate Professor, University of Cincinnati, working on animal sociality, cognition, networks, conflict, & hierarchies. (she/her)
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elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Coverage of our paper in Popular Science! www.popsci.com/environment/... (paper's full text here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...)
Image showing Popular Science article headline: “Parakeets teach a lesson in friendship” Subtitle: “When meeting new birds, parakeets will ‘test the waters’” Image shows close-up of two marked parakeets, one allopreening the other. Photo by Nina Conklin
November 24, 2025 at 6:41 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Some press about our new paper, led by Dr. Claire O'Connell! Our University of Cincinnati news office put out a nice press release, by Mike Miller: www.uc.edu/news/article... (full paper here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...)
Graphic showing title of U. Cincinnati News article "Parakeets 'test waters' of new relationships" with subtitle "it's not easy to make new friends. This bird can show us how" and pull quote "What's really fascinating about testing the waters is how intuitive it feels" from Claire O'Connell. Photos show Claire holding a monk parakeet and two photos of our study birds allopreening (grooming) each other.
November 24, 2025 at 6:09 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
In an increasingly divided world, how do strangers become friends? Parakeets might have something to teach us! New paper on formation of affiliative relationships, led by Dr. Claire O’Connell doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
Graphic showing the paper title “Monk parakeets ‘test the waters’ when forming new relationships” in the journal Biology Letters. Also features photos of the co-authors (Claire, Annemarie, Gerry, and Liz) as well as the issue cover photo of two marked monk parakeets from Claire’s work grooming each other. Also shown are some of the main plots of the paper showing how the parakeets escalate their behaviors from low risk/low investment (like proximity) to higher risk/higher investment interactions (like preening/grooming)
November 12, 2025 at 1:39 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Congratulations Dr. Claire O'Connell on her successful dissertation defense!
Photo of Claire and Liz celebrating Claire's successful defense talk. Text says: Congratulations Dr. Claire O’Connell!! Successful PhD Defense: "The effect of social history and relationship heuristics on affiliative bonds in parakeets"
October 29, 2025 at 5:57 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Congratulation Dr. Xavier Francis on his successful dissertation defense!
Photo of Xavier and Liz celebrating Xavier's successful defense talk. Text says: Congratulations Dr. Xavier Francis!! Successful PhD Defense: "Real-time aggression decision making within monk parakeet social groups"
October 29, 2025 at 5:55 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Two parakeet defenses in one week! I'm excited to announce my PhD student Claire O'Connell will also be defending her dissertation research next week! Her talk is Oct 29th (Weds) at 10:00-11:00 US eastern. Anyone interested is welcome to join by zoom: tinyurl.com/4z2pnhup --> "Join this meeting"
Graphic showing a PhD defense ad for Claire O’Connell, PhD titled "The effect of social history and relationship heuristics on affiliative bonds in parakeets “. Ad shows a photo of Claire holding a parakeet, the Hobson Lab and University of Cincinnati logs, a photo of two Monk Parakeets preening each other, and several images from Claire’s research. The defense is October 29th, 2025 10:00-11:00am eastern and is open to the public (your attendance is welcome!). To attend virtually on Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/4z2pnhup (visit link, then click “Join this meeting”). The committee is chaired by Dr. Elizabeth Hobson. The committee members are Dr. Gerry Carter, Dr. Kevin Burgio, Dr. Theresa Culley, and Dr. Nate Morehouse
October 26, 2025 at 5:32 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
I’m excited to announce my PhD student Xavier Francis will be defending his dissertation research next week! His talk is Oct 28th (Tues) at 10:30-11:30 US eastern. Come learn how parakeets choose their fights! Anyone interested is welcome to join by zoom: tinyurl.com/42uaeb6n --> "Join this meeting"
Graphic showing a PhD defense ad for Xavier Francis, PhD titled "Real-time aggression decision making within monk parakeet social groups“. Ad shows a photo of Xavier holding a parakeet, the Hobson Lab and University of Cincinnati logs, a photo of two Monk Parakeets fighting, and three images from Xavier’s research (1: Image describing 5 rules parakeets may use in aggression, 2: frequency of rule use for each of the 5 rules compared to random expectations, 3: time series showing when each rule was used or avoided over time in a novel group of parakeets. The defense is October 28th, 2025 10:30-11:30am eastern and is open to the public (your attendance is welcome!). To attend virtually on Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/42uaeb6n (visit link, then click “Join this meeting”). The committee is chaired by Dr. Elizabeth Hobson. The committee members are Dr. Gerry Carter, Dr. Dai Shizuka, Dr. Katie Grogan, and Dr. Nate Morehouse.
October 23, 2025 at 4:22 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Congratulations Dr. Sanjay Prasher (recent Hobson Lab PhD) on a new publication! We explored how memory, attention, and social preferences affected social plasticity, using an agent-based modeling approach. doi.org/10.1093/icb/... (or message me if you want a pdf!)
Image showing the title of the new paper ("Exploring the Factors Underlying Adaptive Social Plasticity in Foragers Using an Agent-Based Model") published in the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology. Image shows a photo of first author Sanjay Prasher, Hobson Lab and University of Cincinnati logos, and three images of figures from the paper (a flow diagram of the agent-based model, heatmaps showing how social interactions towards a focal individual changed as a function of memory, attention, and social preference, and lineplots showing how group size modulated these effects)
September 28, 2025 at 4:44 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
My grad student Ashley Staab will be defending her Masters work next week! Cute birds ("the bobs"), cool bioacoustics methods (ohun R package call template analysis, machine learning), & fun results (we can identify which bird called!). Let me know if you want a zoom link: Elizabeth.Hobson@uc.edu
Image showing Ashley Staab's Masters Defense ad ("Identifying individual-level call variation in the northern bobwhite quail"). Pictures of Ashley holding a male bobwhite quail, a male bobwhite next to a spectrogram of his "bob-white" call, logos for the Hobson Lab and University of Cincinnati, and three example plots from Ashley's work (call spectrograms, a heatmap of call similarity, and a boxplot of within/across individual call similarity.
September 25, 2025 at 8:38 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)
Image showing Hobson Lab logo (with parakeets, a social network, and R code), two Monk Parakeets, and several individually-marked parakeets with the text "Now recruiting PhD students!!"
September 23, 2025 at 6:58 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
I put together Sanjay's timeline for his history in the lab to introduce him for his defense today and wow!! It's a good visualization of just how productive he's been!! Links to all papers/preprints here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20...
Image showing a timeline of Sanjay's many accomplishments in the lab: grants, papers, experiments, conferences, etc over 2020-2025
May 29, 2025 at 9:20 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Congratulations Dr. Sanjay Prasher!!!
Photo of Liz and Sanjay grinning after Sanjay's successful PhD defense
May 29, 2025 at 9:14 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
My PhD student Sanjay Prasher will be giving his dissertation defense talk this week! Anyone interested is welcome to join! Thursday, 1:00pm eastern. Visit link tinyurl.com/mr2rfpwj -- click “Join this meeting” to join the Zoom. More info: tinyurl.com/38tbska9
Image showing the text “Sanjay Prasher PhD Defense: An empirical and computational investigation of relationship dynamics and emergent social structure. Hobson Lab, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Cincinnati. May 29th, 2025 1:00-2:00pm eastern”. Image also shows several pictures of Sanjay (one holding a “bob”/bobwhite quail, one soldering electronics for his research) as well as pictures of bobwhite quail, and several plots from Sanjay’s dissertation chapters (networks, heatmaps, scatterplot)
May 27, 2025 at 1:42 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
The SIGNAL workshop will also feature an interactive career panel, with panelists who followed a variety of academic, government, & industry paths (Register here! signal-ab.weebly.com/register-for...)
Image showing the SIGNAL logo, title of the workshop (SIGNAL Graduate Student Workshop - Professional Development & Peer Networking in Animal Behavior), and photos of our nine career panelists
May 14, 2025 at 3:17 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
The SIGNAL workshop will feature two keynote speakers, Dr. Cesar Estien & Dr. Charissa Owens
Image showing the SIGNAL logo, title of the workshop (SIGNAL Graduate Student Workshop - Professional Development & Peer Networking in Animal Behavior), and photos of our two keynote speakers
May 14, 2025 at 3:14 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Grad students, there is still time to register for the SIGNAL workshop, which starts tomorrow!! Please pass this on to any grad students who may be interested: signal-ab.weebly.com/register-for...
Flyer for SIGNAL Workshop stating: SIGNAL Graduate Student Workshop Professional Development & Peer Networking in Animal Behavior. May 15-16th 2025, 11am-3pm EDT. Free virtual workshop open to graduate student applicants globally! Interactive career panel (academic, government & industry paths), keynotes (showing pictures of two keynote speakers (Dr. Charissa Owens and Dr. Cesar Estien), and community building & peer support activities.
May 14, 2025 at 3:12 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Graduate students working in any aspect of Animal Behavior: sign up to attend the 5th annual SIGNAL Workshop May 15-16th! Featuring professional development, peer networking, & career panel. 100% of past respondents recommended it to other grad students! signal-ab.weebly.com/register-for...
Flyer for SIGNAL Workshop stating: SIGNAL Graduate Student Workshop Professional Development & Peer Networking in Animal Behavior. May 15-16th 2025, 11am-3pm EDT. Free virtual workshop open to graduate student applicants globally! Interactive career panel (academic, government & industry paths), keynotes (showing pictures of two keynote speakers (Dr. Charissa Owens and Dr. Cesar Estien), and community building & peer support activities.
April 29, 2025 at 8:29 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Fortune shifts fast for monk parakeets! This Feb, "OPO" (orange-purple-orange) was absolute bottom-ranked in its group. Come March and a new group composition, OPO came out swinging and achieved top rank. Keep fighting friends 🧪🪶
Image with two plots, both x-axes = ordinal rank (from 10 to 1, with 1 being top-ranked) and both y-axes = continuous power scores. Lines and points show the ranks of birds in two groups of parakeets, with top-ranked birds on the top right and bottom-ranked birds on the bottom left of each plot. Bird orange-purple-orange ("OPO") is shown in comic form in the center with the color combination drawn on his head (orange), cheeks (purple), and neck (orange). Plot one has OPO circled, where it was the lowest-ranked bird in the group. In plot 2, OPO appears again but is now the highest-ranked bird (circled with exclamation points!)
March 17, 2025 at 6:25 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
We are launching several new experiments with our parakeets this week! Unfortunately some of our birds are a little leery of our new data collection set-up. Doesn't he look like the world's most nervous new podcaster? 😂 🪶🧪
Photo of a Monk Parakeet ("PIP" with color combination purple-pink-purple on the head/cheeks/neck) in a cage inside a sound recording booth. A shotgun microphone on a boom arm points at the bird in the cage; PIP is looking at it nervously and NOT CALLING like he is supposed to!
March 4, 2025 at 4:11 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
I am recruiting 1-2 postbacs for my parakeet sociality & cognition project! This position is for people finished with undergrad but who have not yet started grad school. Must be totally fascinated by parakeet social drama (there's a lot of it!)🪶🧪 Job ad here: ornithologyexchange.org/jobs/board/s...
Image showing the Hobson Lab logo (monk parakeets flying into a social network diagram with R code in the background), pictures of natural-colored green and gray monk parakeets, and head shots of our individually-marked birds showing their color combos and "names" (Blue-Orange-Blue has those colors on the head, cheek, and neck, and is "BOB"). Text says "Postbac position: parakeet sociality & cognition"
February 27, 2025 at 12:26 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Moment of levity away from the news, in case anyone needs it…

I joke that the parakeets I study sometimes plot how to ruin my research: I now have photographic proof!

My evil birds are actively disassembling their flight cage - unscrewing screws & then flying around showing off their souvenirs 🧪🪶
Two pictures of monk parakeets, each then zoomed it. In the first picture, parakeet “Blue-Purple-Orange” is using its beak to unscrew a roofing screw from the side of its flight pen. In picture two, a different parakeet can be seen running along a stick perch carrying one of the roofing screws in its beak
February 6, 2025 at 6:04 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
Just had to delete this week's and all future weeks' grant planning sessions for an NSF BIO-LEAPS proposal we were writing due to the abrupt archival of the funding call this past week. Program Officer said: "There will not be any future BIO-LEAPS competitions. I am sorry I do not have better news."
Screenshot of the NSF webpage for the BIO-LEAPS funding call (Leading culture change through professional societies of biology), showing that it has recently been abruptly archived. Link: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/bio-leaps-leading-culture-change-through-professional-societies/505994/nsf22-542
January 26, 2025 at 8:17 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
I usually write grant proposals fueled by Pulparindo but this one's being stubborn, I had to supplement with Nerds. Hopefully a lucky combo! #science
Photo of a box of rainbow nerds and a pile of pulparindo candies
January 10, 2025 at 8:25 PM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
I'll be presenting on several recent projects bridging animal sociality and cognition with computational methods today at
#SICB2025! I'm part of the Organismal Systems Biology Symposium (11:00-11:30, Marquis A). New results from parakeets, quail, vampire bats, and sexual selection
Title slide of Liz Hobson's SICB talk, showing the title (Bridging animal sociality and cognition with computational methods) and pictures of monk parakeets, bobwhite quail, networks, R and NetLogo
January 5, 2025 at 11:59 AM
elizabethhobson.bsky.social
It's great to see Altmetrics for Bluesky now!! Thanks @altmetric.com doi.org/10.1111/nyas...
Screenshot of one of my papers on my list of publications on my website, showing Bluesky in the Altmetrics. Paper is called "Long-term cooperative relationships among vampire bats are not strongly predicted by their initial interactions", currently showing a score of 4 on Altmetrics.
December 3, 2024 at 7:38 PM