Mandy Ridley

Mandy Ridley is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Western Australia, where she has been based since 2012 following her ARC Future Fellowship. She leads research on behavioral ecology with a focus on cooperative breeding systems, particularly studying pied babblers and Western Australian magpies. Her work spans multiple research projects examining social dynamics, cognition, and climate change impacts on avian behavior.

• PhD in Behavioural Ecology, Cambridge University, UK (2004)
• BSc (Hons) Animal Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand (1999)

Professor Ridley's research centers on the evolution and dynamics of cooperative breeding behavior, with particular interest in understanding helping behavior, its costs and consequences, and long-term population dynamics. Her laboratory investigates social living aspects including investment in cooperation, intra- and inter-group dynamics, cognition, sociality, and vocal communication. Recent work has focused on climate change impacts on cooperative breeding behavior and group dynamics, particularly examining how extreme climate events affect behavior and cognition in cooperative species.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong trend toward understanding the intersection of social complexity and cognitive abilities in wild bird populations, particularly examining how group size affects cognitive performance. Her work increasingly integrates climate change effects with behavioral and cognitive studies, highlighting the vulnerability of social species to environmental stressors. The research spans multiple disciplines including behavioral ecology, cognitive science, conservation biology, and climate science.

• Faculty of Science Excellence Award 2017
• UWA Student Guild's Student Choice Award 2017

Professor Ridley actively supervises higher degree research students and serves as Graduate Research Coordinator for the School of Biological Sciences. She has secured significant research funding including multiple ARC Discovery Grants and an ARC Future Fellowship. Her research program includes long-term field studies in Australia and Africa, examining critical group size effects, social dynamics, and climate change impacts on cooperative breeding systems. She maintains active collaborations with researchers across multiple institutions and countries.

Her laboratory oversees several major research projects including the Pied Babbler Research Project in the Kalahari desert (which she established during her postdoc at Cambridge), the Western Magpie Research Project, and collaborations with the Shark Bay Dolphin Research Project. These long-term studies provide unique insights into social evolution, communication complexity, and the impacts of environmental change on social species.