Dr Rachael Miller (Harrison)

Comparative Psychology | Behavioural Ecology | Conservation

I am currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, and a Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Faculty of Environment, Science & Economy, University of Exeter, with extensive knowledge & skills in: research with 45 publications; h-index = 22; i10-index = 32; citations: 1465 and international Comparative Cognition Society Award (see News Page), university-level teaching in Biology, Psychology & Zoology (with a PG Cert in Learning & Teaching qualification), academic supervision & mentoring, funding acquisition, national and international collaborations, project management & administration, with specific expertise in animal cognition & behaviour, welfare & conservation and child development. See Professional Career Page for more info. 

My research programme, incorporating fundamental and applied approaches and impacts, includes lead roles in three overarching, interconnected areas:

1) Comparative, Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology, Behavioural Ecology,

2) Big-Team Open Science (ManyBirds Project Co-Founder with 120+ collaborators; ManyManys collaborator),

3) Applications of fundamental research in cognition and behaviour for conservation and welfare impact (Bali myna Project; Red-billed chough Project). See Projects, Lab Members and Background Page for more info. 

I use evolutionary, developmental and comparative approaches to test causes and consequences of individual and species variation in cognition and behaviour, primarily in birds and children. I have led and supervised collaborative experimental and observational research on cognitive traits including executive function, social learning, self-control, decision-making, neophobia and innovation. I demonstrated individual cognitive traits can be stable (repeatable) or flexible, depending on age and context, for example, raven and crow neophobia varies over development, though ravens are strongly shaped by social groups (BehEcolSocio, PLOS ONE), jays flexibly adapt self-control choices depending on competitor presence (PLOS ONE) and adult Bali myna are more neophobic than juveniles (RSOS). Crows, jays and Bali myna learn socially  or use social information, for example, with Bali myna being more likely to copy a model bird's choices in a higher-risk context (Ethology, Peer J). We showed that crows reason about hidden causal agents (PNAS) and flexibly plan for future tool-use (Proc B) in a comparable way to 3-5 year old children (RSOS). Leading a team of 130+ collaborators, we demonstrated that the key ecological drivers of neophobia in birds are migration and dietary specialism (PLOSBio). These insights broadly contribute to advancing cognitive evolution theory while offering practical conservation and welfare-relevant tools. See Publications Page for more info. ​

I advocate Open Science practices, including publishing all data-sets associated with my papers, pre-registering (from Nov 2018) and pre-printing my work.