Behavioral Ecology

Carina Bruchmann

Research interests

  • Emotion & empathy
  • Social behavior in primates
  • Cognition


Overall, I am interested in how non-human primates navigate their social lives. For my PhD project, I explore affective states and emotional contagion during naturally occurring social interactions in a free-ranging population of Barbary macaques. By using non-invasive thermal imaging, I measure physiological emotional responses of individuals as they engage in social interactions or observe others' interactions as passive bystanders. This allows me to examine whether bystanders exhibit emotional contagion by matching the emotions of active participants.

Education

  • April 2025– present
    PhD student, Department of Behavioral Ecology, University of Göttingen
    Project: Exploring affective states and emotional contagion in Barbary macaques through thermal imaging
  • March 2024 - March 2025
    Research assistant, Department of Behavioral Ecology, University of Göttingen
    Collecting field data of Barbary macaques at Affenberg Salem
  • October 2019 - February 2024
    M.Sc. Developmental, Neural and Behavioral Biology, University of Göttingen
    Thesis title: Do long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) expect previously reliable experimenters to continue to provide high-quality food rewards?
  • January 2019 - June 2021
    Research assistant, Department of Behavioral Ecology, University of Göttingen
    Cleaning long-term behavioral data of Assamese macaques scoring aggressive interactions for dominance hierarchy calculations.
  • October 2015 - May 2019
    B.Sc. Biology
    Thesis title: Strategisches Stören affiliativer Interaktionen Anderer bei Rhesusaffen



Publications