Joshua Plotnik, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Joshua Plotnik, Ph.D. is the lab’s principal investigator. He is a comparative psychologist and conservation behavior researcher who has studied the intelligence of elephants since 2005. Recently, Josh has been working in Thailand to understand how research on animal thinking can be applied directly to the mitigation of human/elephant conflict. He is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and the Animal Behavior and Conservation Program at Hunter College, and in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the Director of the Comparative Cognition for Conservation Lab and the Director of the Animal Behavior and Conservation Graduate Programs at Hunter College. Dr. Plotnik has earned degrees from both Emory University (M.A. and Ph.D.) and Cornell University (B.S.). He lives in New York City.
Hunter College
Graduate Center, CUNY
E-mail: joshua.plotnik@hunter.cuny.edu
Robbie Ball
Ph.D. student
Robbie (He/Him) is a Ph.D. student in the CCC lab and a graduate student in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology Program at the Graduate Center at CUNY.
He received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from the University of California San Diego in 2019. He focuses on experimental cognitive work in animals, drawing from the evolutionary and developmental perspective of comparative cognition.
E-mail: rball@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Recent Publications: Acknowledging the Relevance of Elephant Sensory Perception to Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation, Gibbon strategies in a food competition task
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Sydney Hope, Ph.D. 
Postdoctoral Fellow
Sydney is a postdoctoral fellow in the CCC lab, having completed her PhD at Virginia Tech in Fish and Wildlife Conservation in 2019.
She received her B.S. in Biology from the College of New Jersey in 2014. Her Ph.D. project investigated how external factors influence young birds (from incubation to the juvenile period), and she continued similar work as a postdoc at the Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (CEBC) in France. Sydney leads the lab’s research on collective intelligence and memory, and also manages several other research projects, supervising and mentoring high school, undergraduate and graduate students, from New York to Thailand.
E-mail: sh7548@hunter.cuny.edu
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Sarah Jacobson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Sarah is a postdoctoral fellow in the CCC lab, having completed her PhD in the lab (in 2023) as a student in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology Program at the Graduate Center at CUNY.
She received her B.A. in Neuroscience from Colorado College in 2013. Her Ph.D. project was focused on Asian elephant crop-raiding behavior, and how individual variation in elephant behavior and cognition can help predict human-elephant conflict. She is continuing to lead several elephant cognition and conservation projects in the lab.
E-mail: sjacobson@gradcenter.cuny.edu
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Matthew Rudolph
Ph.D. student
Matthew graduated with an MA in the Animal Behavior and Conservation Program in the CCC lab in 2021, and is now a PhD student in the lab studying elephant olfactory cognition and human-elephant conflict mitigation in Thailand.
He received a B.S. in Biology from UCF in 2017. His M.A. project was focused on elephant olfaction as it relates to social learning. His Ph.D. work is focused on elephant olfaction and implementing novel human-elephant conflict mitigation techniques.
E-mail: mrudolph@gradcenter.cuny.edu
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Miranda Trapani
Ph.D. student
Miranda is a Ph.D. student in the CCC lab and a graduate student in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology Program at the Graduate Center at CUNY.
Miranda received her B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Hunter College in 2017. Her M.A. project (which she also completed in the lab) was focused on applications of giant panda cognition and personality to conservation in practice.
Lab Alumni
Alumni of the CCC lab have brought their skills and expertise to organizations such as:
Caitlyn Thai – M.A., ABC Program: Body States of Asian Elephants Within and Around Protected Areas in the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Summer Fiori – M.A., ABC Program: The Impact of Location and Time of Day on the Expression of Social Behavior and Physical Maintenance of Wild Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) in Thailand
Emma Nguyen – Bronx High School of Science: Behavior and use of watering holes by wild Asian elephants in Thailand.
Ekaterina Balsan – Bronx High School of Science: Thick-billed parrots and the role of animal personality in conservation.
Sasha Montero – M.A., ABC Program: Using Day and Night Camera Trap Videos to Identify Wild Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus) in the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
Amanda Puitiza – M.A., ABC Program: Exploring Behavioral Flexibility, Problem-Solving, and Innovation in Captive Asian Elephants.
Serene Rivera – M.A., ABC Program: The Effect of the Lunar Cycle on the Demographics of Asian Elephants Observed in Open Areas in a Protected Wildlife Sanctuary and Surrounding Crop Fields
Sateesh Venkatesh – M.A., ABC Program: Variation in Personality among Semi-wild Myanmar Timber Elephants.
Joshua DiPaola – M.A., ABC Program: Investigating the use of sensory information to detect and track prey by the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) with conservation in mind.
Tamara Aird – M.A., ABC Program: Conservation education in urban and rural schools in Thailand.
Ariel Lombardo Aghishian – M.A., ABC Program: Contagious yawning in cats.
Elizabeth Krisch – M.A., ABC Program: Accurate and inaccurate social cue following in domestic horses.
Dalia Miller – M.A., ABC Program: Object permanence in Asian elephants.
Mal Walton – M.A., ABC Program: Problem-solving in turtles
Leah Wersebe – M.A., ABC Program: Demographics of wild Asian elephants