Christina Riehl

Christina Riehl is an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, affiliated with the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) as part of the Grand Challenges Program. Her research focuses on behavioral ecology and evolution, tropical ecology, and the impacts of climate on animal behavior and reproductive strategies. She leads the Riehl Lab, studying cooperative behavior in birds like the greater ani, exploring topics such as social group dynamics, brood parasitism, and decision-making in natural settings.

Key research areas include understanding how cooperation evolves among unrelated individuals, the role of climate cycles (e.g., El Niño) on tropical species, and the interplay between behavior, resources, and environmental pressures. Her work combines field studies in Panama, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic with molecular approaches. Recent findings highlight mechanisms of egg rejection in hosts of brood parasites, the fitness benefits of cooperative breeding, and the cognitive challenges of social living.

Riehl has been recognized as a Kavli Fellow (National Academy of Sciences) and received an NSF CAREER Award. Her lab supports a dynamic team of graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates, with ongoing projects on collective decision-making, sex ratio biases, and the evolution of mating systems in tropical birds. She also collaborates on large-scale datasets analyzing global avian nesting success and climate impacts.

• Grants: NSF CAREER Award (2019), Princeton Environmental Institute grants.
• Awards: Kavli Fellow, Nature Paper Highlight (2019), Princeton Research Day awards.
• Labs/Teams: Riehl Lab (Princeton), collaborations with global institutions on tropical bird studies.