Professor Alex Kacelnik
My inordinate interest in all things alive started while playing in a small plot of wasteland the size of a tennis court, when I was about 5 years old. I discovered how to tickle webs to watch the spiders come out of their hiding and jump on the tip of my twig, each kind building a different web and responding differently to stimulation. This discovery shaped the rest of my life. Many years later I studied zoology at the University of Buenos Aires, and eventually came to Oxford for a DPhil in animal behaviour, studying how animals (mostly birds) make decisions in the face of uncertainty. Four decades later I am still working on similar issues, having spent many wonderful years as zoology tutor at Pembroke and professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford’s Department of Zoology.
Although nominally retired, I am very busy sharing research with colleagues and graduate students. My aim is to understand animal minds, and by understanding I mean unravelling how minds work, why are they as they are, and what consequences this has for species and ecosystems. One major topic is the role of information in animal motivation. When are animals curious (actively seeking information) and when conservative, (avoiding uncertainty)? Perhaps surprisingly, many animals seek uncertainty provided they can reduce it, similarly to a scientist’s appetite for unsolved, but solvable, questions. We study this in birds, mammals, and presently also in fish, hoping to infer evolutionary reasons for their preferences.
Another issue is intelligence. As part of a consortium based in Berlin (https://www.scienceofintelligence.de) my colleagues and I compare the intelligence of very smart birds (cockatoos and crows) with that of ‘intelligent’ robots, hoping to pinpoint what sustains the capacity for intelligent innovative behaviour, for instance allowing agents to discover how to use tools or unravel mechanical puzzles. More exotically, I am involved in research of how some South American birds elude the effort of child rearing by laying eggs in the nest of other species, how South American bats respond to the timing of nectar availability in flowers, and on how Antarctic penguins decide when to get out of the sea and get on with the business of nesting and rearing young.
Last, but not least, I am interested in how the human mind combines its biological and evolutionary heritage with malleability in the face of culture. One example is sex: having evolved because of its reproductive function, human sexuality is psychologically flexible and culturally dynamic. In my view we can only come close to understand such important aspects of our own mind if we articulate scientific knowledge of how and why the bees and the flowers do it with the protean expression of human behaviour in relation to sex and gender.
If you think I am spreading far too broadly for my own good, you may be right, but like some of the animals I study, I find the limits of what we know about the biology of the mind irresistible. Nature keeps posing fascinating questions on my way, and I just give in.
I was born and grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and arrived in Oxford a memorable day of St Giles Fair, in 1974. Although Oxford has remained my intellectual home ever since, I have moved a bit, spending substantial periods of work in Groningen, Cambridge and Berlin, all places that have exerted great influence on my career and way of thinking.
In 1989, while a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College Cambridge, I had the opportunity of returning to Oxford to join Pembroke and the Department of Zoology, which, if course, I couldn’t miss. Here I founded the Behavioural Ecology Research Group, and was happy to share the excitement of behavioural research with over 40 DPhil students, postdocs, and, of course, hundreds of undergraduates. Exceptionally among UK universities, Oxford still has a compulsory retirement age, and I of course complied to that in 2017, when my age arrived, but, not feeling ready to hang up my biologist’s boots, I made a smooth transition to emeritus status (my major concession being to switch to an e-bike to help me muscle up Headington Hill) both as university professor and Pembroke fellow, and at present continue more or less as before, except for undergraduate tutoring and lecturing.
Details of what I have been doing can be found in my CV, just below, but I cannot finish without re-stating that, should I have a chance to choose a time and place to live again, I would not hesitate to ask for a repeat: nothing beats to find an excuse for persisting in being curious as a child through your lifetime.
CURRICULUM VITAE
ALEJANDRO KACELNIK FRS
Academic Career
2016 - Present Emeritus Professor, Department of Zoology, Oxford University. Emeritus Fellow, Pembroke College, Oxford.
1996 - 2016 Professor of Behavioural Ecology, Department of Zoology, Oxford University.
2004-2006 Vice-Gerent, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
1990 - 2016 E P Abraham Research Fellow, Pembroke College, Oxford.
1990 - 1996 University Lecturer in Zoology, Oxford University.
1986 - 1990 Senior Research Fellow, King's College, Cambridge, U K.
1982 - 1986 Research associate, Dept of Zoology, Oxford (with J R Krebs).
1980 - 1982 Research associate, Zoological Laboratory, Groningen University, The Netherlands.(with S Daan and R Drent.)
1979 DPhil (Zoology, Animal Behaviour), Oxford. (Supervisor: J R Krebs)
1976 -1979 Research Assistant, Animal Behaviour Research Group, Department of Zoology, Oxford (with D J McFarland and J R Krebs).
1974 - 1976 British Council Scholarship, Oxford.
1971 - 1973 Research Scholarship, National Institute of Pharmacology, Argentina.
1971 Research Scholarship, Argentinian Foundation for Mental Health.
1970 Licenciado en Ciencias Biologicas, University of Buenos Aires.
Visiting Professorships/Distinctions
Tinbergen Medal, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (2019)
Honorary member, Argentinian Society for Neurosciences (2012)
Fellow of the Royal Society (2011)
Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. Moderator, Focus Group: Sciences of Risk (2001-2003)
Fellow, Academia Europaea (2003)
Lifetime Research Award, Society for Comparative Cognition (2011)
Raíces (Roots) Prize from Argentinian Government for promoting international scientific collaboration (2011)
Eduardo de Robertis Prize of the Argentinean Society for Neurosciences (2009)
Cogito Prize for interdisciplinary research (2004)
Foreign Member, Sociedad Argentina de Biología (2010)
Honorary Professor, University of Buenos Aires (2016)
Visiting Professorships: Free University, Berlin; Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Princeton University, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon, France; Indiana University (Bloomington); Buenos Aires University, Argentina; Van der Klaauw Professor of Biology, Leiden University; New York University (Shanghai).
I have served, or are serving, in these Editorial Boards and related
Panels: BBSRC Animal Sciences. Royal Society Research Appointments (B). Editorial: Biology Letters RS (Board member); BMC-Ecology; Learning & Behavior; Ethology; Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology; American Naturalist; Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Behavioural Processes; Behavioural Ecology; Symposia on Quantitative Analyses of Behavior; Behavioural Public Policy. Advisory Boards: Max Planck Institute, Seewiesen. Institute for Integrative Life Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Chairman, Societies: International Society for Behavioral Ecology; British Ecological Society; Experimental Psychology Society; Society for Quantitative Analyses of Behavior; Psychonomics Society; Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Society for Comparative cognition. Diverse consultancies, selection panels, examiner function.
Research funding
Numerous Grants from BBSRC; Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, NERC, British Council, Fundación Antorchas (Argentina), Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, NATO, Royal Society, Cogito Foundation.
Selected Lectures
Approximately 300 invited lectures and conference presentations, including:
1. President’s Guest address, Eastern Psychological Association, Providence, RI. April 1999.
2. Plenary Talk, XXVI International Ethological Conference, August 1999, Bangalore, India
3. Invited Speaker, Cold Spring Harbour symposium on Neurobiology of Decision Making. May 2005.
4. Plenary lecture. International Conference of Behavioral Ecology, Tours, Aug 2006
5. Keynote speaker, Subjective Probability, Utility and Decision Making Conference, Warsaw, Aug 2007
6. Invited Speaker, AAAS Darwin’s celebration Symposium. Philadelphia 2009,
7. Master Lecture, Society for Comparative Cognition, Melbourne, FL March 2011
8. Tinbergen Lecture, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, London, December 2016
9. Skinner Lecture, Association for Behavioral Analysis International, Denver May 2017
10. Kavli Keynote Lecture, Society for Neuroeconomics, Philadelphia Oct 2018.
Graduate supervision
41 completed Ph D supervisions, including the 1988 winner of the Thomas H Huxley medal of the Zoological Society and the winner of the 2005 Royal Institution-L’Oreal Graduate of the Year award. Former graduate students and postdocs include professors at University College London, Bristol University, Columbia University, Liverpool University, University of California, University of Chile and University of Buenos Aires, as well as researchers elsewhere in the UK and in the USA, Brazil, Spain, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Australia and Argentina. Currently (2021) co-supervising doctorate students in Oxford, Buenos Aires, Berlin (TU) and Vienna (Uni Vet).
1. Kacelnik, A. (2009) Tools for thought or thoughts for tools? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 10071–10072. doi:10.1073/pnas.0904735106
2. Bluff, L.A., Troscianko, J., Weir, A.A.S., Kacelnik, A., & Rutz, C. (2010). Tool use by wild New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides at natural foraging sites. Proceedings of the Royal Society (London), Series B: published online.
doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1953.
3. Pompilio, L. & Kacelnik, A. (2010). Context-dependent utility overrides absolute memory as a determinant of choice. PNAS, 107: 508-512.
doi:10.1073/pnas.0909468107
4. Gloag, R.S., Tuero, D.T., Fiorini, V.D., Reboreda, J-C. and Kacelnik, A. (2011) The economics of nestmate-killing in avian brood parasites: a provisions trade-off. Behavioural Ecology 23: 132-140. doi:10.1093/beheco/arr166
5. Freidin E, Kacelnik A. (2011) Rational choice, context dependence, and the value of information in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Science. 2011 Nov 18; 334(6058):1000-2. DOI:10.1126/science.1209626
6. Kacelnik A, El Mouden C (2013). Triumphs and trials of the risk paradigm. Animal Behaviour 86: 1117-1129 doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.09.034
7. Vasconcelos M, Monteiro T, Kacelnik A (2015) Irrational choice and the value of information. Scientific Reports (2015). 5:13874 doi:10.1038/srep13874
8. Antone Martinho III* and Alex Kacelnik. Ducklings imprint on the relational concept of “same or different”. Science 353, 286 (2016). Doi: 10.1126/science.aaf4247. Download from http://science.sciencemag.org/
9. Manuel Baum, Matthew Bernstein, Roberto Martín-Martín, Sebastian Höfer, Johannes Kulick, Marc Toussaint, Alex Kacelnik, Oliver Brock (2017) Opening a Lockbox through Physical Exploration. (2017) Proceedings of IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots. [Peer-reviewed Conference proceedings]
10. Versace E, Martinho-Truswell A, Kacelnik A, and Vallortigara G (2018) Priors in Animal and Artificial Intelligence: Where does learning begin? Trends in Cognitive Sciences (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.07.005)
11. von Bayern A, Danel S, Auersperg A, Mioduszewska B, and Kacelnik A (2018) Compound tool construction by New Caledonian crows, Scientific Reports. 8:15676. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-33458-z
12. Kacelnik, O., & Kacelnik, A. (2021). Behavioral risk compensation and the efficacy of nonpharmacological interventions. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-12. doi:10.1017/bpp.2021.1
News from Biology
Professor Alex Kacelnik
My inordinate interest in all things alive started while playing in a small plot of wasteland the size of a tennis court, when I was about 5 years old. I discovered how to tickle webs to watch the spiders come out of their hiding and jump on the tip of my twig, each kind building a different web and responding differently to stimulation. This discovery shaped the rest of my life. Many years later I studied zoology at the University of Buenos Aires, and eventually came to Oxford for a DPhil in animal behaviour, studying how animals (mostly birds) make decisions in the face of uncertainty. Four decades later I am still working on similar issues, having spent many wonderful years as zoology tutor at Pembroke and professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford’s Department of Zoology.
Although nominally retired, I am very busy sharing research with colleagues and graduate students. My aim is to understand animal minds, and by understanding I mean unravelling how minds work, why are they as they are, and what consequences this has for species and ecosystems. One major topic is the role of information in animal motivation. When are animals curious (actively seeking information) and when conservative, (avoiding uncertainty)? Perhaps surprisingly, many animals seek uncertainty provided they can reduce it, similarly to a scientist’s appetite for unsolved, but solvable, questions. We study this in birds, mammals, and presently also in fish, hoping to infer evolutionary reasons for their preferences.
Another issue is intelligence. As part of a consortium based in Berlin (https://www.scienceofintelligence.de) my colleagues and I compare the intelligence of very smart birds (cockatoos and crows) with that of ‘intelligent’ robots, hoping to pinpoint what sustains the capacity for intelligent innovative behaviour, for instance allowing agents to discover how to use tools or unravel mechanical puzzles. More exotically, I am involved in research of how some South American birds elude the effort of child rearing by laying eggs in the nest of other species, how South American bats respond to the timing of nectar availability in flowers, and on how Antarctic penguins decide when to get out of the sea and get on with the business of nesting and rearing young.
Last, but not least, I am interested in how the human mind combines its biological and evolutionary heritage with malleability in the face of culture. One example is sex: having evolved because of its reproductive function, human sexuality is psychologically flexible and culturally dynamic. In my view we can only come close to understand such important aspects of our own mind if we articulate scientific knowledge of how and why the bees and the flowers do it with the protean expression of human behaviour in relation to sex and gender.
If you think I am spreading far too broadly for my own good, you may be right, but like some of the animals I study, I find the limits of what we know about the biology of the mind irresistible. Nature keeps posing fascinating questions on my way, and I just give in.
I was born and grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and arrived in Oxford a memorable day of St Giles Fair, in 1974. Although Oxford has remained my intellectual home ever since, I have moved a bit, spending substantial periods of work in Groningen, Cambridge and Berlin, all places that have exerted great influence on my career and way of thinking.
In 1989, while a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College Cambridge, I had the opportunity of returning to Oxford to join Pembroke and the Department of Zoology, which, if course, I couldn’t miss. Here I founded the Behavioural Ecology Research Group, and was happy to share the excitement of behavioural research with over 40 DPhil students, postdocs, and, of course, hundreds of undergraduates. Exceptionally among UK universities, Oxford still has a compulsory retirement age, and I of course complied to that in 2017, when my age arrived, but, not feeling ready to hang up my biologist’s boots, I made a smooth transition to emeritus status (my major concession being to switch to an e-bike to help me muscle up Headington Hill) both as university professor and Pembroke fellow, and at present continue more or less as before, except for undergraduate tutoring and lecturing.
Details of what I have been doing can be found in my CV, just below, but I cannot finish without re-stating that, should I have a chance to choose a time and place to live again, I would not hesitate to ask for a repeat: nothing beats to find an excuse for persisting in being curious as a child through your lifetime.
CURRICULUM VITAE
ALEJANDRO KACELNIK FRS
Academic Career
2016 - Present Emeritus Professor, Department of Zoology, Oxford University. Emeritus Fellow, Pembroke College, Oxford.
1996 - 2016 Professor of Behavioural Ecology, Department of Zoology, Oxford University.
2004-2006 Vice-Gerent, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
1990 - 2016 E P Abraham Research Fellow, Pembroke College, Oxford.
1990 - 1996 University Lecturer in Zoology, Oxford University.
1986 - 1990 Senior Research Fellow, King's College, Cambridge, U K.
1982 - 1986 Research associate, Dept of Zoology, Oxford (with J R Krebs).
1980 - 1982 Research associate, Zoological Laboratory, Groningen University, The Netherlands.(with S Daan and R Drent.)
1979 DPhil (Zoology, Animal Behaviour), Oxford. (Supervisor: J R Krebs)
1976 -1979 Research Assistant, Animal Behaviour Research Group, Department of Zoology, Oxford (with D J McFarland and J R Krebs).
1974 - 1976 British Council Scholarship, Oxford.
1971 - 1973 Research Scholarship, National Institute of Pharmacology, Argentina.
1971 Research Scholarship, Argentinian Foundation for Mental Health.
1970 Licenciado en Ciencias Biologicas, University of Buenos Aires.
Visiting Professorships/Distinctions
Tinbergen Medal, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (2019)
Honorary member, Argentinian Society for Neurosciences (2012)
Fellow of the Royal Society (2011)
Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. Moderator, Focus Group: Sciences of Risk (2001-2003)
Fellow, Academia Europaea (2003)
Lifetime Research Award, Society for Comparative Cognition (2011)
Raíces (Roots) Prize from Argentinian Government for promoting international scientific collaboration (2011)
Eduardo de Robertis Prize of the Argentinean Society for Neurosciences (2009)
Cogito Prize for interdisciplinary research (2004)
Foreign Member, Sociedad Argentina de Biología (2010)
Honorary Professor, University of Buenos Aires (2016)
Visiting Professorships: Free University, Berlin; Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Princeton University, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon, France; Indiana University (Bloomington); Buenos Aires University, Argentina; Van der Klaauw Professor of Biology, Leiden University; New York University (Shanghai).
I have served, or are serving, in these Editorial Boards and related
Panels: BBSRC Animal Sciences. Royal Society Research Appointments (B). Editorial: Biology Letters RS (Board member); BMC-Ecology; Learning & Behavior; Ethology; Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology; American Naturalist; Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Behavioural Processes; Behavioural Ecology; Symposia on Quantitative Analyses of Behavior; Behavioural Public Policy. Advisory Boards: Max Planck Institute, Seewiesen. Institute for Integrative Life Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Chairman, Societies: International Society for Behavioral Ecology; British Ecological Society; Experimental Psychology Society; Society for Quantitative Analyses of Behavior; Psychonomics Society; Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Society for Comparative cognition. Diverse consultancies, selection panels, examiner function.
Research funding
Numerous Grants from BBSRC; Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, NERC, British Council, Fundación Antorchas (Argentina), Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, NATO, Royal Society, Cogito Foundation.
Selected Lectures
Approximately 300 invited lectures and conference presentations, including:
1. President’s Guest address, Eastern Psychological Association, Providence, RI. April 1999.
2. Plenary Talk, XXVI International Ethological Conference, August 1999, Bangalore, India
3. Invited Speaker, Cold Spring Harbour symposium on Neurobiology of Decision Making. May 2005.
4. Plenary lecture. International Conference of Behavioral Ecology, Tours, Aug 2006
5. Keynote speaker, Subjective Probability, Utility and Decision Making Conference, Warsaw, Aug 2007
6. Invited Speaker, AAAS Darwin’s celebration Symposium. Philadelphia 2009,
7. Master Lecture, Society for Comparative Cognition, Melbourne, FL March 2011
8. Tinbergen Lecture, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, London, December 2016
9. Skinner Lecture, Association for Behavioral Analysis International, Denver May 2017
10. Kavli Keynote Lecture, Society for Neuroeconomics, Philadelphia Oct 2018.
Graduate supervision
41 completed Ph D supervisions, including the 1988 winner of the Thomas H Huxley medal of the Zoological Society and the winner of the 2005 Royal Institution-L’Oreal Graduate of the Year award. Former graduate students and postdocs include professors at University College London, Bristol University, Columbia University, Liverpool University, University of California, University of Chile and University of Buenos Aires, as well as researchers elsewhere in the UK and in the USA, Brazil, Spain, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Australia and Argentina. Currently (2021) co-supervising doctorate students in Oxford, Buenos Aires, Berlin (TU) and Vienna (Uni Vet).
1. Kacelnik, A. (2009) Tools for thought or thoughts for tools? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 10071–10072. doi:10.1073/pnas.0904735106
2. Bluff, L.A., Troscianko, J., Weir, A.A.S., Kacelnik, A., & Rutz, C. (2010). Tool use by wild New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides at natural foraging sites. Proceedings of the Royal Society (London), Series B: published online.
doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1953.
3. Pompilio, L. & Kacelnik, A. (2010). Context-dependent utility overrides absolute memory as a determinant of choice. PNAS, 107: 508-512.
doi:10.1073/pnas.0909468107
4. Gloag, R.S., Tuero, D.T., Fiorini, V.D., Reboreda, J-C. and Kacelnik, A. (2011) The economics of nestmate-killing in avian brood parasites: a provisions trade-off. Behavioural Ecology 23: 132-140. doi:10.1093/beheco/arr166
5. Freidin E, Kacelnik A. (2011) Rational choice, context dependence, and the value of information in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Science. 2011 Nov 18; 334(6058):1000-2. DOI:10.1126/science.1209626
6. Kacelnik A, El Mouden C (2013). Triumphs and trials of the risk paradigm. Animal Behaviour 86: 1117-1129 doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.09.034
7. Vasconcelos M, Monteiro T, Kacelnik A (2015) Irrational choice and the value of information. Scientific Reports (2015). 5:13874 doi:10.1038/srep13874
8. Antone Martinho III* and Alex Kacelnik. Ducklings imprint on the relational concept of “same or different”. Science 353, 286 (2016). Doi: 10.1126/science.aaf4247. Download from http://science.sciencemag.org/
9. Manuel Baum, Matthew Bernstein, Roberto Martín-Martín, Sebastian Höfer, Johannes Kulick, Marc Toussaint, Alex Kacelnik, Oliver Brock (2017) Opening a Lockbox through Physical Exploration. (2017) Proceedings of IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots. [Peer-reviewed Conference proceedings]
10. Versace E, Martinho-Truswell A, Kacelnik A, and Vallortigara G (2018) Priors in Animal and Artificial Intelligence: Where does learning begin? Trends in Cognitive Sciences (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.07.005)
11. von Bayern A, Danel S, Auersperg A, Mioduszewska B, and Kacelnik A (2018) Compound tool construction by New Caledonian crows, Scientific Reports. 8:15676. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-33458-z
12. Kacelnik, O., & Kacelnik, A. (2021). Behavioral risk compensation and the efficacy of nonpharmacological interventions. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-12. doi:10.1017/bpp.2021.1