Researchers used peanuts and a climbing wall to learn how squirrels judge their leaps so successfully – and how their skills could inspire more nimble robots.
Author Archives: Lucia F. Jacobs/University of California Berkeley
I trained originally in animal behavior (1978 B.S., Neurobiology & Behavior, Cornell), classical ethology (University of Vienna, 1976) and behavioral ecology (1983 M.A., 1987 Ph.D., Biology, Princeton). As a postdoc, I studied animal cognition, evolutionary anthropology and behavioral neuroscience with NATO, NSF and NIMH fellowships at the Universities of Toronto, Pittsburgh and Utah. I joined Berkeley as an Assistant Professor in 1993, where I am now a Professor in Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.
Our work synthesizes concepts from ecology, animal behavior, cognitive science and neuroscience in order to understand the evolution of universal cognitive traits, such as spatial memory and navigation.