Resume

• 2006

  French

  Ph.D.

  Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience

  research focus: Animal Behavior

• 2003

  MA

  Psychology focus on Animal Behavior and Conservation

  Sigma Xi

  the Science Research Society

  Parsippany Hills High School

  Tufts University

  BA

  Psychology

  Drama

  3 Ps - Drama Honor Society

• 2002

  Staten Island Zoo

  Wildlife Conservation Society

  University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

  Hunter College

  Central Park Zoo

  Bronx Zoo

  Bird keeper.

  Bronx Zoo

  Intern

  Central Park Zoo

  University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

  Assistant professor in the psychology department teaching comparative cognition

  cognitive processes

  and research methods.

  Assistant Professor

  Chattanooga

  Tennessee Area

  Presents puppet theatre for adult and family audiences

  The Puppetry of Preston Foerder

  Hunter College

  •\tInstructor at Hunter College:\n\tEthology-Animal Behavior (PSYCH 225)

  Fall 2011

  Spring 2012.\n\tLearning Theory (PSYCH 350)

  Fall 2011

  Spring 2012.\n\tEvolution and Behavior (PSYCH 160)

  Spring & Fall 2010

  Spring 2011.\n\tSocial Psychology (PSYCH 230)

  Fall 2009

  Spring 2011. \n\tIntroduction to Psychology (PSYCH 100)

  6 semesters

  Fall 2006 – Fall 2010. \n•\tTeaching assistant for Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH 100)

  Experimental Psychology (PSYCH 250)

  Experimental Social Psychology (PSYCH 249)

  Statistical Methods in Psychology 2 (doctoral level) (PSYCH 706)

  and Evolution and Behavior (PSYCH 160).\n•\tGuest lecturer for Animal Behavior and Conservation (PSYCH 717) and Cognitive Processes (PSYCH 270).

  Graduate Assistant

  Greater New York City Area

  Wildlife Conservation Society

  Staten Island Zoo

• Social Psychology

  Microsoft Office

  Cognition

  Animal Behavior

  Psychology

  Research

  Grant Writing

  Theatre

  Public Speaking

  Student Affairs

  Performing Arts

  Creative Writing

  Teaching

  Comparative Cognition

  Insightful Problem Solving in an Asian Elephant

  Diana Reiss

  Donald E. Moore III

  Tony Barthel

  Marie Galloway

  The “aha” moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly

  elephants

  thought to be highly intelligent

  have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior

  a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube

  on which he then stood

  to acquire the food. In further testing he showed behavioral flexibility

  using this technique to reach other items and retrieving the cube from various locations to use as a tool to acquire food. In the cube's absence

  he generalized this tool utilization technique to other objects and

  when given smaller objects

  stacked them in an attempt to reach the food. The elephant's overall behavior was consistent with the definition of insightful problem solving. Previous failures to demonstrate this ability in elephants may have resulted not from a lack of cognitive ability but from the presentation of tasks requiring trunk-held sticks as potential tools

  thereby interfering with the trunk's use as a sensory organ to locate the targeted food.

  Insightful Problem Solving in an Asian Elephant

  Donald E. Moore

  Martin Chodorow

  Animals in aggregations such as herds

  schools

  flocks

  or colonies tend to synchronize their behaviour with each other for food acquisition and predator detection. Different species of captive penguins

  when housed communally

  intermingle more than in their natural habitat. Wild penguins typically divide themselves into separate colonies by species. We predicted that penguins would synchronize their behaviour more with conspecifics rather than interspecifically in a mixed-species zoo exhibit. The subjects were 65 penguins of two different species

  chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarctica) and gentoo (Pygoscelis papua) in the Central Park Zoo

  New York

  NY

  USA. Using instantaneous scan sampling

  359 video scans were taken over 10 days. Scans were analysed for nine different categories of behaviour for both species. Intra-species synchrony scores were calculated using the Kappa coefficient of agreement

  and inter-species synchrony was measured by computing cross-correlations. As predicted

  overall synchrony was significantly greater within both species of penguins than for randomly aggregated data representing mixed groups. There was also significantly less synchrony between species than between randomly mixed data for six of the nine behaviour categories. The pattern of results indicates that the penguins had organized by behaviour into separate species-specific colonies within the enclosure. They maintained species separation through behavioural synchrony despite the restrictions imposed by captivity.

  Behavioural synchrony in two species of communally housed captive penguins

  Foerder

  The Puppetry of Preston Foerder