Kelly Ronald, Assistant Professor of Biology, received a $20,000 award from the Christian Scholars Foundation for the project titled Noisy and Bright: How sensory pollution of urban areas affects the auditory and visual processing of a songbird.
This project will examine the sensory processing of songbirds to determine how the sensory environment (e.g., noises, lights, and olfactory stimuli) impacts the successful reception of signals. This project has three primary goals: to determine whether birds from urban or rural populations have different sensory processing abilities; to assess whether birds from different populations demonstrate different sensory modalities that impact auditory and visual processing; and to determine whether there are sex differences in sensory processing in urban and rural environments.
Congratulations, Kelly, on your new award!