Amy Teffer
Visiting Assistant Professor of Animal Science
Amy is a Western Mass local artist-scientist-mom teaching Animal Behavior at Hampshire College. She earned her BSc and MSc from UMass Amherst in Fisheries Conservation and Management and Marine Science. She pursued her PhD in Biology at the University of Victoria in BC studying how climate change and fisheries influence the disease ecology, survival, and fitness of Pacific salmon during their spawning migration. She has partnered with the DOI Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, federal and state agencies, Tribal Nations, and others to develop best practices for managing wildlife and fisheries in a changing climate and human-impacted environments. She is passionate about the integration of Art-Science-Identity into education and outreach. She brings her whole self to her work as a teacher, researcher, and mentor.
Recent and Upcoming Courses
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This course will explore the scientific study of animal behavior in the context of natural selection and evolutionary theory following Rubenstein's text, "Animal Behavior," in addition to examples from contemporary literature. As a group, we will investigate functional and evolutionary bases of animal behavior in the context of reproductive behavior, mating systems, parental care, altruism, social behavior, communication, and cognition. Students will lead independent projects focused on a specific behavior or class of behaviors within and/or among species, emphasizing discovery, creative thinking, skills application, and knowledge communication to the broader community. Students will emerge with the ability to apply the concepts underpinning the study of animal behavior and its importance in the context of global change. Keywords:animal behavior, animal senses, biology, evolution
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This hands-on field course will cover research methods for observing, coding, and analyzing animal behavior. We will practice behavior sampling and recording techniques on domestic animals at the farm, wild animals in the campus woods, and captive animals in the lab. We will use tools and equipment for measuring and tracking behaviors, including social behavior, foraging and communication behavior. Students will carry out independent projects on a species in the Hampshire woods, the Farm, or the lab and will be expected to consult the primary scientific literature to learn about their species. We will examine how to summarize, analyze, and present data. Students will work with spreadsheets and basic R Statistical Software and make graphs to present their data. Papers and presentations will be due for each project. Keywords:Animal behavior, research methods, ethology, ecology, agriculture/aquaculture