Our Team
Eduardo Fernández-Duque
Science Director
Eduardo is the fundator and science director of the Owl Monkey Project. He is a biological anthropologist with a general interest in understanding the evolution and maintenance of social systems. He was born in Argentina , and after completing his Ph.D. in Animal Behavior at the University of California in Davis, he spent time as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and the Zoological Society of San Diego. His main research interest is to examine the mechanisms that maintain social monogamy and the role that sexual selection may have had in the evolution of this unusual mating system. With a main focus in pair-living primates, he has studied sakis, titis, and owl monkeys in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Argentinean Chaco, as an approach to understanding the evolution of human behavior. He is particularly interested in male-female relationships, pair bonding and paternal care in humans and non-human primates, and his extended work includes more than 100 publications! In July 2014 he joined the Department of Anthropology at Yale University.
To know more about the amazing work of our director visit: https://fernandezduque.wordpress.com
Griëtte van der Heide
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Alexa Duchesneau
Alexa is interested in how habitat and land-use relate to the ecology, nutrition and health of owl monkey species and populations. She is interested in nutritional ecology and behavioral ecology frameworks. She aims to leverage her research as a platform for Neotropical primate and flora conservation. Previous to starting her PhD at Yale, she conducted field work at Dr. Susan Perry’s field site in Lomas Barbudal, Costa Rica studying white-faced capuchin monkeys, at Dr. Joan Silk’s Comparative Analysis of Baboon Sociality Project studying Anubis baboons in Laikipia, Kenya, and with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Americorps implementing endangered species conservation management plans. Before embarking on field work expeditions, she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Operations & Information Management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Marcelo Rotundo
Project Manager, Proyecto Mirikiná
Secretary, Fundación ECO
Marcelo was working at the Argentinean Primate Center in Resistencia when he first came to Formosa to visit the site of the still-non-existent Owl Monkey Project. He spent the weekend camping with Eduardo´s family in the forest and together they walked along the Pilagá River to decide where they should study the monkeys. In 1999, Marcelo joined the project full-time and has been working here since then.
His role has been instrumental in the success and longevity of the Owl Monkey Project. Nobody knows the monkeys of Guaycolec better than him. He has been responsible for the capturing of over 140 owl monkeys. His field skills have also sent him on numerous trips to another field site, the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where he collaborated in the capturing of owl, saki, titi, and squirrel monkeys.
David Wood
David studied Anthropology and Psychology at University of Illinois where he worked in Dr. Rebecca Stumpf’s behavioral endocrinology lab creating a developmental trajectory of urinary cortisol in pre-dispersed female chimpanzees. After graduating, he worked for a year at the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project in Guanacaste, Costa Rica run by Dr. Susan Perry (UCLA) collecting field data on white-faced capuchin behavior and social interactions. Currently, David is a PhD student at Yale University developing research into parental care behaviors of owl monkeys and titi monkeys.
Facundo Fernandez-Duque
Facundo grew up in Formosa and spent a great deal of time playing at the Guaycolec field site as a child. From his experiences there, he developed a passion for biology that drove him to do his first research study with the Owl Monkey Project. Afterward, he went on to study Biological Sciences at Cornell University and became closely involved with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the wonderful mentors there, he participated in numerous research projects spanning a wide array of topics. Looking to narrow down his research interests after graduation, he joined various behavioral ecology studies in Ecuador. Upon returning to the United States, he has been working as a research assistant for the Owl Monkey Project and Dr. A. Caccone’s Genetics Lab at Yale while he applies for graduate school.
Dr. Alba Garcia de la Chica
Ph.D. University of Barcelona
Alba received a B.S in Psychology in 2012 at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, and an M.Sc in Primatology at the University of Barcelona one year later. Her passion for primatology took her to Formosa to be part of the Owl Monkey Project where she carried out her Ph.D. dissertation. Alba investigated the role of intrasexual competition between pairs and solitary floaters in the maintenance of the social organization and mating system of the species, using a combination of acoustical, behavioral, and life history data.
Dr. Margaret Corley
Maggie studied biology at Boston University as an undergraduate and then at Queen's College CUNY, where she received a Master's degree in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior (EEB). She then began studying biological anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania where she earned her PhD with a dissertation on demographic, endocrine, and behavioral correlates of dispersal in owl monkeys. Currently, Maggie is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Yale University, where she is collaborating on projects related to both humans and non-human primates with Drs. Claudia Valeggia, Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, and Gisella Caccone.
Katie Burchfield
Katie is a third-year undergraduate student at Yale University studying Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Over the past year, she has assisted with genetics research in Dr. Caccone’s lab at Yale, where she works on genetic sex determination of owl monkeys in our research population.
