Annika Paukner

Annika Paukner is an Associate Professor in Comparative Psychology at the School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University. She specializes in bridging comparative, developmental, and animal cognition research, focusing on cognitive and social processes in animals. Her work explores the evolutionary roots of human cognition, early infant development in humans and non-human animals, and captive animal welfare needs.

Dr. Paukner earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Stirling and previously worked as a Staff Scientist at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the U.S. She joined NTU in 2019.

Her research includes projects like the Leverhulme Trust-funded 'FEELING THE HEAT' initiative, examining human emotion recognition in meerkats. Key interests include oxytocin’s role in prosocial behavior, food selection in captive primates, and neonatal imitation’s predictive value for later social behavior. She teaches modules such as Biological Psychology and Evolutionary Psychology, and administers NTU’s EDI committee and postgraduate programs.

Publications span topics like eye-tracking methodology in infants, primate social behavior, and neural correlates of social development. Her work emphasizes translational research, linking nonhuman primate studies to human health and welfare.