I am broadly interested in interactions between the environment and the organism.  The focus of my research is how birds use environmental and social cues to know the optimal time to breed.  Reproductive cycles are regulated by physiological mechanisms, with hormones acting as messengers between the environment and pertinent tissues.  For example, in birds the brain responds to increases in photoperiod by releasing gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus.  GnRH then stimulates the anterior pituitary gland to release luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH).  LH and FSH then act upon the gonads to initiate and maintain gonadal activity as well as release sex hormones.

Timing of breeding is crucial.  Evolutionarily, those individuals that have chicks during times of high food abundance tend to have the greatest fitness.  Most birds from temperate climates reproduce on a seasonal cycle that maximizes chances of successfully rearing a brood.  Individuals look to the environment and to other conspecifics for informational cues with which to orchestrate breeding.  With incessant human impact upon climate and the environment, understanding the roles and mechanisms by which birds base timing of reproduction has become increasingly important in order to predict and understand current and future population fluctuations.

My research focuses on how male birds vary their use of testosterone in response to environmental and social conditions.   For my dissertation, I am conducting a comparative study between the White-crowned sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophyrs, in North America and the Rufous-collared sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis, in Latin America.