Emily Levy
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Dr. Levy is a behavioral ecologist. She studies local songbirds to understand how an animal's environment can affects its behavior, physiology, morphology, health, and fitness. During the spring and summer, students in the lab work with songbirds living in nest boxes on and near SHU's campuses. In during the school year, they do lab work and data analysis. The lab is currently working on two experiments testing the effects of supplemental food and pesticides on nestling development. Reach out if you're interested in joining the lab!
Degrees & Certifications
- Postdoctoral researcher, Indiana University Bloomington, 2022-2024
- Ph.D., Duke University, 2022
- BA, Williams College, 2013
Teaching Responsibilities
- Anatomy & Physiology I & II
- Biology of Animal Social Behavior
- Ecology
- Genetics & Evolution
Awards & Fellowships
- Faculty Research Award, CT Space Consortium, 2025
- Graduate Research Fellowship Program, National Science Foundation, 2018
- James B. Duke Fellowship, Duke University, 2016
- Sara Sparrow Fellowship in Clinical Neuroscience, Yale University, 2013
Research Interests
I am a behavioral ecologist and physiologist. I study how an animal's outside environment like early-life adversity or social competition get 'under the skin' to affect behavior, physiology, morphology and fitness. My lab primarily studies bluebirds and house sparrows - backyard birds that are really fun to work with! We use a combination of field experiments and lab techniques to ask how the outside environment gets under the skin.
My postdoctoral research was in Kim Rosvall's lab at Indiana University where I studied the evolution and mechanisms of aggression in female songbirds. I studied several highly aggressive species to ask what's going on in female brains when they are aggressive and whether the brain's response to aggression has evolved similarly or differently across species.
My doctoral research was in Susan Alberts' lab at Duke University. That work explored how early-life and adult environments are associated with physiology, morphology and behavior. I did this research by studying a population of wild baboons in Kenya observed by the Amboseli Baboon Research Project. As a graduate student I was awarded a Research Grant from the Leakey Foundation, a Graduate Research Fellowship from the NSF, a Lewontin Graduate Research Excellence Grant from the Society for the Study of Evolution, and a Student Research Grant from the Animal Behavior Society.
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