I am broadly interested in the evolution of sociality.
Social systems are the products of behavioral strategies of individuals.
I study how conflicts of interest arising from group-living are resolved through the evolution of alternative behavioral strategies. My studies have focused on parent-offspring conflict, social parasitism, and reproductive conflicts arising from sociality. I am particularly interested in how ecological, social and genetic factors interact in shaping the evolution of parasitic and cooperative breeding strategies. Measuring kinship is fundamental to understanding conflicts of interest. My research integrates field observation and experimental work on populations of marked individuals with molecular genetic determination of relatedness.