Heather Brooks
Ethologist, Postdoctoral Associate
I earned my PhD in 2025 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and I am currently a postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Peleg Lab. I am broadly interested in animal behavior, animal communication, complex social systems, and human-animal interactions.
Research Interests
My research interests have always been tied to conservation efforts and maintaining global biodiversity. I discovered the field of animal behavior at the University of Illinois and have pursued this passion ever since. I am particularly interested in complex groups and their behavioral interactions with one another. This includes dominance relationships, playful interactions, and communication between species. I have collected behavioral data on terrestrial mammals, aquatic mammals, fish, insects, and songbirds,
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My doctoral work focused on communication in mixed-species flocks of Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice in East Tennessee forests. I examined whether communication, particularly vocal output, could be considered a behavioral syndrome or personality trait in these species. Most recently, I am studying visual systems and communication in various firefly species as well as cognitive and behavioral measures in other insects, such as honeybees at the University of Colorado Boulder
My Photos
Recent Publications
Bonus! Check out this National Geographic article by Sadie Dingfelder that highlights the work I did with Gordon Burghardt on interspecies play features a brief interview with me!
Brooks, H. J. B. & Freeberg, T. M. (2026). Comparative support for the social complexity hypothesis in the calls of two closely related species – Tufted Titmice Baeolophus bicolor and Black-crested Titmice B. atricristatus. Ibis, 168(1):117–126