Meet our team

Co-founder of the Social Savanna project, Kat's research involves using birds as model systems to understand how evolutionary conflict and cooperation within family affects behaviour, physiology and life history. Physiological biomarkers – including telomeres, stress responses, parental care hormones and immunological parameters – are the primary component of her ecological toolkit. In the Social Savanna Project, Kat's primary work focusses on the concept of social immunity: collective immune defences that can be shared between family and group members to reduce the whole group's infection risk. As part of this topic, Kat performs behavioural observations and experiments with birds temporarily housed in our in-situ field aviary, which was constructed for this purpose at our field site in Mbuluzi Game Reserve. 

Zama is a molecular ecologist who works at the interface between ecological and micro-organismal biology.  She specialises in understanding the link between environment, life history, disease and physiology across different bird species. Zama is also the coordinator of the EWILD wildlife forensic laboratory at the University of Eswatini. After working with us at our field site while collecting data for part of her PhD, Zama continues to be a close collaborator in her new lectureship position, frequently contributing to our projects and supervising students working in our team.

Chris is an expert on animal movement. He specialises in the use of remote tracking techniques, such as radio tags, to understand why birds use their habitat in the way they do and to elucidate social relationships and interactions between partners and social groups. In the Social Savanna Project, Chris has set up and coordinates data collection from a radio-tracking grid which allows us to monitor the movement of individual birds over days, months or even years. We are using these enormous datasets to answer questions about home ranges and social contact networks.

Our work in Mbuluzi Game Reserve is facilitated by All Out Africa, the non-profit foundation responsible for running the research center where we are based during fieldwork trips. Under the guidance of chairman Kim Rogues and with support and logistical assistance from research center staff Mduduzi Ngwenya and Nkosikhona Hlatshwayo, we have a beautiful and welcoming working environment, with access to all the equipment needed to safely and accurately conduct our research.