Mickey Pardo

My work on animal communication and cognition has yielded new insights into the minds of nonhuman animals, challenging preconceptions about their capabilities. I found that acorn woodpeckers, a species that rarely comes up in conversations about “intelligent” animals, have a sophisticated understanding of the social relationships between their neighbors. I also discovered that African elephants address each other with name-like calls. These discoveries not only contribute to scientific understanding of other animals but may ultimately help us understand the ecological pressures that led to the evolution of large brains and language in our own species.

Moreover, the extensive media interest in my work on elephant names illustrates the unique potential of animal behavior to capture public attention and increase appreciation for the natural world. It is also extremely important to me to directly facilitate biodiversity conservation. To that end, I use sound recordings and AI to monitor wildlife populations and work closely with managers to deliver the data that they need to set effective conservation policy.

I started on the path to studying animal communication with a high school science fair project on squirrel communication that morphed into my undergraduate honors thesis and eventually my first scientific publication. I have also always been an avid language learner and linguistics nerd, which likely contributed to my decision to focus on animal vocalizations for my PhD. Since then, I have delved deeper into the fascinating world of bioacoustics, from analyzing the information hidden within elephant calls to using sound recordings to survey bird populations.

My work studying wildlife on four continents has allowed me to embrace exploration in every sense of the word and combine my scientific career with my passion for language learning and cultural exchange. But what motivates me the most is my love for animals. Intellectually, I am driven by an intense curiosity about their internal lives. How do nonhuman animals think, feel, and navigate their social relationships? The more I learn about animals’ cognitive complexity, the more I feel a sense of moral obligation to conserve the ecosystems in which they live and to advocate for them as individuals.