MEME is a research group in Malaysia, which encompasses all levels of elephant research, including social science, ecological, behavioural, and biological aspects. I was first introduced to this interdisciplinary team as a research assistant to Lisa Ong, who studied the ecological dynamics of elephants. I then contributed to research on using bioacoustics and AI to detect elephants in human-elephant conflict landscapes.

The titipounamu is endemic to New Zealand, and stand in a unique position as their own basal Passerine suborder, Acanthisittidae. Their vocal learning ability is phylogenetically interesting because they are the link between the songbirds and parrots, both of which are great vocal learners! But whether the titipounamu has the ability to learn their calls is currently a mystery. To answer this question, we study the vocal behaviour of a colour-banded population of titipounamu in a native submontane forest in New Zealand over 3 breeding seasons, by using handheld and automated bioacoustic recorders.

Birdwatching is a widespread pastime and offers unprecedented potential to unravel cryptic movements of birds.  I downloaded eBird and WikiAves records to map the cryptic migration patterns of 3 tyrant-flycatcher species in South America. With vast geographical and temporal coverage in recent decades, these bird sighting records provide valuable citizen science data for continental-scale bird population modelling.

The last primaeval forest of Poland, Białowieża, is an attractive place to savour Europe's remnant wildlife and vanishing bird songs. It is also one of the last remaining strongholds of wood warblers (Phylloscopus sibilatrix), we conducted a  playback experiment to investigate the functions of the 2 song types of wood warblers.

WCC is a fun and engaging wildlife conservation course with a twist - it uses games! Cedric Tan from Oxford University created WCC to teach complex ecological concepts and tools using board games and card games. I was a research assistant collecting data on student interactions and to compare learning performance between traditional style teaching and teaching using games.

Altered environments affect biodiversity and their ecosystem functions. Using birds as bio-indicators, I investigated the health of an oil palm plantation that was converted from a peat-swamp forest. I quantified the avian functional diversity of different stages of oil palm plantation, and found that monoculture does not support birds with specialist habitats and diets. This study was done in Malaysia, the hotspot for both birdlife and the palm oil industry.