Denny wrote:

I am currently a PhD student in the Conservation Biology graduate program at the University of Minnesota. My research focus will be to implement a Newcastle Disease vaccination program for village chickens in the area surrounding Serengeti National Park, Tanzania and to determine: 1) if the vaccination program will help increase the amount of food and income generated by chickens in these villages, and 2) if helping to create a more robust chicken supply will help to reduce the impact of poaching on wild animals in the Serengeti.

While my current research focus on the link between humans and animals has taken a slightly different direction than my experience in the primate cognition lab at Carleton, I do credit my time there as a key motivation for my interest in wildlife conservation. Not to mention what a great opportunity it was to participate in ground-breaking research with cotton-top tamarins. After graduating Carleton, I worked as a research fellow at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, participating in a variety of animal behavior and conservation projects. My experiences with behavioral studies at the zoo and my experience studying primate cognition helped prepare me for an upcoming teaching assistantship for an animal behavior class at the U of M.