CANDIDATES FOR 2027 ELECTION OF OFFICERS
| Second President-Elect: | Kerry Shaw Ted Stankowich |
|
| Member-at-Large: | David Logue Michael Reichert |
|
| Student Representative: | Daniel Gutierrez Ray Pressman |
|
| Program Officer-Elect: | Jennifer Hellman Chris Templeton |
|
| Graduate Student Representative: | Daniel Gutierrez
Ray Pressman |
Please take the time to vote in the upcoming election! In January 2027, you will receive an e-mail from the ABS Central Office, containing a link that will take you to the online ballot. This e-mail will be sent to the address in your ABS account as long as you are an active ABS member. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].
CANDIDATES FOR THE 2027 ELECTION OF ABS OFFICERS
Second President-Elect:
Kerry Shaw
Education: 1993 Ph.D. Washington University in St. Louis, Population Biology
Current Position: Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University
ABS and Related Activities: Elected Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society (2017); Founders Poster Award evaluator, 2026; have attended and presented at annual ABS meetings for many years. My student advisees and post docs have likewise presented at ABS meetings and applied for ABS student research grants. I have been a regular reviewer for the Animal Behavior journal. I founded the ABC (Animal Behavior Club) for undergraduates at Cornell University in 2025, which has revealed an untapped enthusiasm for animal behavior science. I started to learn more about the leadership and committee structures of the Animal Behavior Society when I looked into nurturing and amplifying the enthusiasm of eager undergraduates in order to have a greater educational impact. Although I have not yet served in a leadership role in the Animal Behavior Society, I served as the North American Vice President at the Evolution Society and President at the American Genetic Association, both giving me administrative experience in a professional society. I have served as Associate Editor at both Behavioral Ecology (past) and Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (current), in addition to Evolution (past), all focused on my research interests in animal behavior. At Cornell, I have been director of the Honor’s research program in Neurobiology and Behavior for the past several years and am passionate about encouraging research in Animal Behavior generally.
Ted Stankowich
Education: Ph.D. – Animal Behavior (June 2006), University of California, Davis, Animal Behavior Graduate Group
Emphasis: Ethology and Evolutionary Bases of Animal Behavior; M.S. – Animal Behavior (June 2002), University of California, Davis, Animal Behavior Graduate Group, Emphasis: Ethology and Evolutionary Bases of Animal Behavior; B.A. – Biological Sciences (Cum Laude) (May 2000), Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences, Emphasis: Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior
Current Position: California State University, Long Beach, Department of Biological Sciences; Associate Professor: 05/2018 – current, Associate Chair: 06/2019 – current
ABS and Related Activities: ABS Program Officer (2023); Allee Award Judge (2013, ‘26), Founders’ Award Judge (2017), Genesis Award Judge (2025), & Student Research Grant Judge (2010, ‘12), Student Mentor Program, Graduate School Information Panelist (2024-26), Safe Behavior Committee Review Committee (2025), Session Moderator (>10 times), Trained meeting Ally, Attended 20 of the 23 ABS Meetings from 2004-2026
Member-at-Large:
David Logue
Education: Ph.D., Zoology, Colorado State University (2004); B.Sc., Biology—Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, University of California San Diego (1999).
Current Position: Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge
ABS and Related Activities: I began attending ABS when I was a graduate student, and it has been my home society ever since. I have presented at 13 in-person ABS meetings, judged Genesis Poster Competitions, adjudicated grants, moderated sessions, organized a symposium, brought students to meetings, and participated in the meeting mentorship program. I am a longstanding member of the Latin American Affairs Committee, in which capacity I have participated in a panel / workshop, adjudicated grants, mentored a student, and helped update the granting policy. I have also been active in the journal, where I have reviewed manuscripts, published nine papers, and am currently co-editing a special issue. Outside of the ABS, I chaired my department, chaired my university’s animal welfare committee, developed my university’s data science program, and founded community-building initiatives like the Undergraduate Research Symposium at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and the Behavioural Ecology and Ethology Research Symposium at the University of Lethbridge.
Michael Reichert
Education: Ph.D. Biological Sciences, University of Missouri (2011); B.S. Biology, University of North Carolina (2004)
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Oklahoma State University
ABS and Related Activities:
- Lifetime ABS member
- Associate Editor, Animal Behaviour
- Session Chair, ABS Conferences (2022, 2025, 2026)
- Reviewer for ABS Student Research Grants (2017-present)
- Mentor, Turner Program (2020, 2025)
- Mentor, ABS “Virtual Mentoring Program” (2020, 2021)
- Mentor, ABS Latin American Affairs Committee Mentoring Program (2022-2024)
- Trained Ally at ABS conference
Program Officer:
Jennifer Hellman
Education: 2016 PhD. The Ohio State University, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and
Organismal Biology (PI Ian Hamilton), 2010 B.S./B.A Messiah College, Major: Biology, Spanish; Minor: Environmental Science
Current Position: Assistant Professor The Ohio State University, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology
ABS and Related Activities: I have attended ABS as my home society since 2013 when I was an early graduate student, participating in the Allee symposium, receiving a student research grant, and consistently publishing in and reviewing for Animal Behaviour. Since then, I have organized a symposium on Behavioral Plasticity (2019 meeting), served as an ABS student grant reviewer (7 years), judged posters for both the Founder’s Memorial and the Genesis Award, and was a mentor in the Turner program.
Chris Templeton
Education: 2009, PhD, University of Washington
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Western Washington University
ABS and Related Activities:
-
Past ABS service includes reviewing student grants, judging the Founder’s competition, serving on the Film Festival Committee, and serving as Member at Large (2017-20), where I initiated the JEDI award.
-
I have been regularly attending ABS since 2001, and I am excited about the opportunity to continue serving my ‘home society’ as Program Officer.
Graduate Student Representative:
Daniel Gutierrez-Carillo
Education: Ph.D., Florida State University (2023-Present); B.Sc. Universidad de los Andes (2018-2022)
Current Position: Ph.D. Candidate, Florida State University
Research Interests: I study the evolution of complex social behavior focusing on cooperation in Lance-tailed Manakins. My research tackles both the proximate and ultimate mechanisms of social behavior to understand how behavioral variation arises and how it influences evolutionary and ecological processes. I aim to answer the question: “why are animals social?”.
ABS and Related Activities: I became a member of ABS and started attending the annual meeting in 2024 during my first year of graduate school and have presented at each of the meetings since then (2024-2026). During these attendances, I have had the pleasure of getting involved with the Turner program as well, having met and engaged with some Turner awardees in the 2024 meeting in London, and participated as a panelist in the graduate school info session at the 2026 meeting in Cincinnati. I have also been part of the Latin American Affairs Committee at ABS since 2024. I was awarded an ABS student research grant (2025) to fund part of my dissertation work.
Ray Pressman
Education: Integrative Biology – Environmental Science Ph.D. Student, Florida Atlantic University (2024 – Present); Conservation Biology & Ecology B.S.; Biomimicry certificate, Arizona State University (2018 – 2021).
Current Position: Ph.D. student, Bioacoustics and Behavioral Ecology Laboratory (BaBEL), Florida Atlantic University; Graduate Teaching Assistant, Anatomy & Physiology I and II and Cell Biology.
Research Interests: Using society finches, I investigate how incubation temperature influences begging behavior and personality. I am also creating a machine learning model using large-scale citizen science data to predict nest success across North American passerines under future warming scenarios and identify traits associated with climate vulnerability.
ABS and Related Activities: I had an incredible time attending my first ABS Annual Meeting in Cincinnati in 2026. I loved meeting students and researchers from around the world and seeing firsthand how ABS brings together people studying animal behavior across a range of questions and taxa. During the meeting, I was invited by the current Graduate Student Representative, Sekhar, to join the Early Career Research Committee, where I helped organize the student-faculty mixer and graduate student social. These experiences allowed me to hear directly from students about what they value in ABS and what they hope to see from future leadership. Beyond ABS, I have secured over $8,400 in research funding, including the ABS David Tuber Award and the SICB Grants in Aid of Research. I am also a nominated member of Sigma Xi and earned Second Runner-Up in Florida Atlantic University's 3 Minute Thesis Competition.