ManyDogs Leadership Team

Co-Directors

Camila Cavalli

Dr. Cavalli is a Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia (UBC - Vancouver, Canada). Prior to starting that position, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Human Animal Interaction Lab, Animal Welfare Program at UBC. Her research focuses on therapy dogs, both exploring the effects of increased interaction with humans on dogs’ sociocognitive behaviours; as well as studying ways to improve the welfare of these dogs during sessions.

Julia Espinosa

Dr. Espinosa co-founded the ManyDogs Project and was the project lead for ManyDogs 1. Dr. Espinosa is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology where she works with Dr. Erin Hecht’s Evolutionary Neuroscience Lab investigating the heritable and experience-dependent factors that influence the development of dog personality and behavior. After graduating with a BSc in Neuroscience from University of Michigan, she earned a MSc in Animal Biosciences from University of Guelph and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology at University of Toronto. Her work with dogs uses a multi-disciplinary approach to understand the evolution and current phenotypes of aggression and pro-sociality.

Jeffrey R. Stevens

Dr. Stevens is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he leads the Canine Cognition and Human Interaction Lab studying dog behavior/cognition and canine-human interaction. He obtained his undergraduate degree at Baylor University and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University and a research scientist position at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He has worked with 15 different species, ranging from fish to birds to primates. He’s now settled down to two: dogs and humans.

Assistant Directors

Emily Bray - Communications and Community Building

Dr. Bray is an Assistant Professor in The University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine, where she leads the Behavioral Research Across Years (BRAY) Lab. She earned her undergraduate degree at Duke University, completing a senior thesis at the Duke Canine Cognition Center investigating context specificity of inhibitory control in pet dogs. She then went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. For her dissertation, she partnered with The Seeing Eye—the oldest guide dog school in the United States—to conduct a longitudinal study investigating the development of behavior and cognition in dogs. Most recently, she develops and implements cognitive tasks in hundreds of dogs from Canine Companions’ population.

Liz Hare - Data Management and Open Science

Dr. Hare leads Dog Genetics LLC where she consults on genetics and genomics research and breeding program planning in dogs. Dr. Hare earned her undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College before completing her Ph.D. at George Washington University. Dr. Hare then held research positions at Cornell University, the Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory for the United States Department of Agriculture, University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, and Texas Tech University. At Dog Genetics LLC, she has consulted for the Transportation Security Administration Canine Breeding and Development Center, Leader Dogs for the Blind, and Penn Vet Working Dog Center.

Valerie Kuhlmeier - Funding

Dr. Kuhlmeier is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). Her research program explores cognition from a developmental and evolutionary perspective. She examines the origins of our cognitive capacities in a comparative manner, studying infants, young children, non-human primates, and dogs.

Hoi-Lam Jim - Methods Development and Monitoring

Dr. Jim is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Institute for the Future of Human Society at Kyoto University. She is interested in animal behavior and cognition in a variety of cooperative, group-living species to further our understanding of social cognition in non-human animals. She obtained her PhD on eavesdropping in dogs, wolves, and elephants at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria.

Committee Members

Communications and Community Building Committee

This committee focuses on outreach to other academic groups (globally) as well as to non-academic professionals (e.g., working dogs). It also manages the project social media accounts.

Hannah Burrows

Hannah Burrows is a graduate student in Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) at Queen’s University, Canada, where she studies dog–human interaction and comparative cognition in the Social Cognition Lab. Her research examines how guardians perceive canine behaviour and how these perceptions relate to real-time behavioural dynamics in dog–guardian dyads. Her work aims to link guardian-report measures with observable behaviour to inform welfare, training, and handler–dog compatibility.

Lucia Lazarowski

Dr. Lazarowski is a Research Assistant Professor at Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine and Chief Scientist at Auburn University Canine Performance Sciences. Her research aims to improve detection dog selection, training, and performance by investigating factors related to early development, cognition, olfaction, and welfare.

Courtney Sexton

Dr. Sexton is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. She earned her PhD from the George Washington University Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, where her dissertation explored co-evolution, interspecific communication, and social relationships between humans and dogs. As a postdoc at Virginia Tech, she is currently working on the Dog Aging Project, and is especially interested in One Health applications of canine science research. An accomplished writer, she is passionate about scientific outreach and journalism, and often ropes her hound, Sonder, into helping out.

Andrea Sommese

Dr. Sommese is a cognitive ethologist whose research spans animal cognition, welfare, and human–animal interaction. While much of his work has focused on canids, his expertise extends across species, including cats and guinea pigs. His research investigates how animals perceive and interpret their environment, with a particular emphasis on dog–human communication, attention, and social cognition.

Data Management and Open Science Committee

This committee is responsible for supporting ManyDogs projects in implementing open science practices and adhering to reproducibility standards, as well as developing database infrastructure/storage at the larger organization level.

Muhzina Shajid Pyari

Dr. Muhzina is a research associate at Maueyes. She brings a wealth of insight into animal behaviour and cognition. Her research explores the subtle intricacies of social behavior, cognitive flexibility, individual variations and the developmental impact of the environment. Her academic journey spans from the bustling streets of Kolkata, where she studied free-ranging dogs, to the heart of Budapest, where she completed her doctoral work exploring predatory play in domestic cats. Beyond the lab, she is a seasoned educator and science communicator with a flair for storytelling and a heart for animal welfare.

Em Sundby

Lupin Teles

Lupin is a research assistant at the Quantitative Ecology Lab at Federal University of Alagoas in Brazil. They contribute to ManyDogs as a data analysis team member, working on data storage infrastructure and has served as an election teller for the project. With a background in behavioral observation, statistical analysis, and field research, they are interested in canine behavior and cognition, human-animal relationships, and the evolution of canine cognition.

Funding Committee

This committee is responsible for applying for funding opportunities, connecting individual projects to funding opportunities, and networking with funding agencies and other big team science groups.

Daphna Buchsbaum

Dr. Buchsbaum is an Associate Professor of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. She directs the Computational Cognitive Development Lab, and its sister lab the Brown Dog Lab. She was previously a faculty member at the University of Toronto. Dr. Buchsbaum completed her postdoctoral work as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of St. Andrews studying primate cognition. She completed her doctoral training in the UC Berkeley Psychology department, as well as a master’s degree in statistics, focusing on applications of probability theory and statistical computing. Before that, she completed a master’s degree at the MIT Media Lab, working on social learning in interactive animated characters. However, the first species she ever studied was the crab spider Misumena vatia.

Ana Rita Farias

Methods Development and Monitoring Committee

This committee is responsible for supporting ManyDogs projects through protocol development and implementing best practices in canine science research methods.

Hillary Jean-Joseph

Dr. Jean-Joseph is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Paris Nanterre in France. She is interested in human–animal interactions, and more specifically, in how domestication has shaped them. Her work focuses on how domestic animals perceive and interact with humans, how these interactions affect the animals, and how they can be leveraged to improve animal welfare. She obtained her PhD at the University of Vienna (Austria), where she studied how dogs and wolves perceive their environment and humans.

Madeline Pelgrim

Madeline is a graduate student in the Brown Dog Lab at Brown University’s Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto studying Psychology and Biology. Madeline’s current research explores how dogs make decisions, using head-mounted eye trackers to categorize dogs’ daily environment.

Ella Williamson

Ella Williamson is a PhD student at the University of York’s Department of Psychology in the UK. Her research focuses on social cognition in candidate assistance dogs and breeding stock, with the aim of developing a clearer understanding of the socio-cognitive profiles that contribute to successful assistance dog performance. She is also interested in dog and puppy sensitivity to human vocal communication, such as speech type and language, as well as dog vocal behaviour, and explores these topics through playback experiments and citizen science surveys. Ella has previously contributed to the ManyBirds 1 project, working with a variety of bird of prey species. When she’s not working, you’ll likely find her competing in agility or canicross with her dogs, Russo and Turbo.

Previous Leadership Team Members

Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere, CAAB

Dr. Byosiere co-founded the ManyDogs Project, was a co-director from 2022-2023, and was a project coordinator for ManyDogs 1. Dr. Byosiere is the Director of Canine Research and Development at Guide Dogs for the Blind. Previously, she was the Director of the Thinking Dog Center at CUNY Hunter College where she focused on studying the behavior and cognition of domestic dogs, canids, and other companion animals. She began her career at the University of Michigan and has worked at various canine cognition and behavior research groups including the Duke Canine Cognition Center, the Clever Dog Lab, and the Wolf Science Center.

Ljerka Ostojić

Dr. Ostojić is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka in Croatia, where she is currently Head of the Division for Cognitive Sciences. She hold an undergraduate and Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Vienna, Austria, and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge, UK. She has continued to work as a postdoctoral researcher in Cambridge on social cognition in humans, corvids, cephalopods, and dogs before moving to the University of Rijeka, where she is now continuing her research on social cognition, primarily in humans and dogs, as well as working on meta-science projects at the Centre for Mind and Behaviour, where she runs the Comparative Cognitive Science Lab.