Contact
Neetha Iyer
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Anthropology Evolutionary Wing
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Department of Anthropology Evolutionary Wing
- 208 Young Hall
- 1 Shields Avenue
- Davis, CA 95616
Neetha Iyer is an ecologist from India who is fascinated by the complex interactions between social behavior, population dynamics, infectious diseases, and the environment. She is interested in understanding the factors that influence sociality and group-living. Eastern gorillas exhibit marked intra-specific variation in their diet and demography. Yet much of what we know about this great ape is based on a single subspecies, the mountain gorilla. Her dissertation is focused on the closely-related Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri), found in isolated populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She explores how seasonal variation affects social behavior, how parasites are transmitted among social groups, and how demographic stochasticity affects small population dynamics. She hopes her research can be used by wildlife managers and applied to conservation efforts to protect endangered primates and other animals that are increasingly threatened by deforestation and other human-induced environmental changes. She is passionate about promoting diversity in academia by increasing public access to basic science research, through the Outreach Program in the Department of Anthropology and the official Animal Behavior Graduate Group blog The Ethogram. As a graduate student, she also supports the statewide student-worker union UAW 2865 and the recently-formed Student Researcher's United (SRU). She joins 48,000 academic workers at the UC as we bargain for strong contracts to improve our living and working conditions.
Advisor: Dr. Damien Caillaud
Primate sociality, movement ecology, social networks, host-parasite interactions, animal behavior, conservation science
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