Grace Blackburn

Grace Blackburn is a PhD candidate and Adjunct Research Associate in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Western Australia. Her research focuses on understanding how anthropogenic stressors such as noise pollution and climate change affect cognitive performance and behavioral traits of wild birds, particularly Western Australian magpies. She investigates topics like vocal adaptation to urban environments, group dynamics, and the cumulative impacts of multiple environmental stressors. Her work has been supported by grants including the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment (2022-2024).

Education: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Student in Biological Sciences. Research highlights include studying cognitive task correlations in wild birds and the effects of rising temperatures on avian behavior. She has contributed to over 11 peer-reviewed publications and media features on her findings about magpie intelligence and urban adaptation.

Grants: Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment Round 1 2022 (Principal Investigator). Media engagements include articles on 'The smarter the magpie, the better they can handle our noisy cities' and 'Mind of a magpie' featured in news outlets.

Labs/Teams: Active researcher in avian cognition and conservation ecology groups within the School of Biological Sciences.