Sabrina Engesser

Sabrina Engesser is a Guest Researcher and Postdoc in the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen, specializing in Ecology and Evolution. Her work investigates complex communication systems in birds, particularly Western Australian magpies, and their implications for understanding language evolution.

Her research focuses on animal communication, bioacoustics, and behavioral ecology, examining how social environments shape combinatorial structures in avian vocalizations. She explores whether birds exhibit language-like generativity through call combinations, using field studies and acoustic analysis to bridge zoology and linguistic theory.

Recent publications reveal consistent themes in magpie vocal behavior across 2023-2024, demonstrating multi-level combinatoriality and social context dependencies. Her work in journals like Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B highlights how acoustic communication influences group dynamics, suggesting sophisticated non-human communication systems relevant to evolutionary linguistics.