Dora Biro

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Dora Biro is a behavioral biologist and professor at the University of Rochester, where she studies how birds and primates sociall y behave, solve problems, and learn—especially how groups work together. She previously taught at the University of Oxford and was a visiting professor at Kyoto University in Japan.

Education and career in brief:
- BA in Biological Sciences (1997) and DPhil in Animal Behaviour (2002) from Oxford.
- Postdoctoral work: JSPS fellow (2002–2003) in Japan and EPSRC fellow at Oxford (2003–2006).
- Visiting professor at Kyoto University (2007) and Royal Society University Research Fellow at Oxford (2007).
- Associate professor (2013) and fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford; full professor (2019).
- Joined the University of Rochester in 2021 as the Beverly Petterson Bishop and Charles W. Bishop Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

What she does:
- Uses fieldwork and high-tech tools like GPS, accelerometers, camera traps, and AI to study learning and social behavior in birds and primates. She also experiments with robots to see if they can influence bird behavior.
- Studies social learning, group decision-making, and how individuals contribute to navigation and culture, especially in pigeons and chimpanzees.
- Key findings include how homing pigeons learn new routes, remember them for years, and how a newcomer can boost exploration and lead to better group routes—evidence of cumulative cultural evolution in birds.
- In chimpanzees, younger, less experienced individuals tend to innovate more and learn from each other, while older chimps often learn better from adults who are new to the group.

Notable discoveries:
- In 2020, she and colleagues reported the first observed tool use in seabirds when Atlantic puffins used small sticks to scratch themselves.
- She notes that durable tools may help birds learn new skills more easily.