Wendy M. Erb

Postdoctoral Associate in Conservation Bioacoustics, Cornell University
I am a biological anthropologist and behavioral ecologist who studies the ecological, social, and physiological influences on the behavioral and reproductive strategies of wild primates. My collaborative research program spans ecology, bioacoustics, anthropology, and conservation, tied together by a deep interest in how primate populations and human-wildlife relationships are responding to social-ecological change. With my research teams, I have compiled multi-year behavior, ranging, and sound-recording datasets for simakobu (Simias concolor), tamarins (Leontocebus weddelli), and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) as well as soundscape recordings of dipterocarp, peat-swamp, mangrove, and heath forests in Borneo. Students and early career researchers with an interest in collaborating on any of these research topics, please get in touch!

At the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, I am leading a team of natural and social scientists – in collaboration with local partners – to conduct social-ecological research across Indonesia's planned new capital city location in Borneo. With support from Cornell University's Migration Initiative and the Fulbright Scholar Program, we seek to understand the wide-ranging impacts on forests, communities, and biodiversity by combining bioacoustics and ethnographic approaches. In parallel, I am collaborating with Dr. Frank van Veen at the University of Exeter, the Borneo Nature Foundation, and Universitas Muhammadiyah Palangkaraya – initiated in 2018 with a fellowship from the British Academy – on a multidisciplinary research and conservation program in the Mungku Baru Education Forest in Central Kalimantan. We are working to develop cost-effective methods to monitor ecological responses to anthropogenic change to support data-driven conservation strategies for the Rungan landscape.