Join Karan Odom for a journey through female birdsongs. Karan will explain how female songbirds turn what we know about birdsong on its head. From exploring the broad, multifunctional ways that females use their songs to the paradigm-shifting realization that females evolved song millions of years ago alongside males, Karan Odom will tell us about how her female perspective on birdsong expanded our understanding of this ubiquitous bird behavior. Once thought to be a behavior displayed mainly by males, Karan Odom will also explain how she is now using what we learned from decades of research on males to challenge perspectives on how birds produce their songs. Everyone, in fact, can play a role in discovering and documenting female birdsongs by participating in her community science project: Female Bird Song.
Karan Odom is Assistant Professor at University of the Pacific and is based in Stockton, CA. She entered the field of birdsong research studying the raucous caterwaul duets of Barred Owls. This experience made her realize that female songs received less attention than males’ but are no less interesting. She then received her PhD at University of Maryland, Baltimore County exploring the functions of female songs in Puerto Rico and digging into female song evolution in New World blackbirds and songbirds as a whole. Although Karan has traveled the world to study female birdsongs, from Belize to Australia and even a postdoc in The Netherlands, she feels she earned her “street cred” as a postdoc at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. After that, she returned to the University of Maryland, College Park to embark on learning the neuroscience of female songs. She now runs her own lab at University of the Pacific studying everything from genes and hormones to the social interactions that cause females to sing. Find more at www.karanodom.com.