Grace Smarsh | Got sounds? Let's investigate!
Welcome! I am a PhD candidate at Texas A&M University, although I’ve spent a good amount of time living in Tanzania conducting my doctoral research. I am a member of the Smotherman lab, focusing on the behavioral ecology, evolution, and acoustics of singing in the heart-nosed bat, Cardioderma cor. I have been investigating the territorial behavior of this species in Tanzania in the Kilimanjaro Region.
More generally, I am interested in the intersection of acoustics, behavior, and spatial ecology in animals. I have been working in Chiroptera as bats offer many opportunities to investigate the function of low frequency repertoires in inter-individual or inter-group spacing and foraging behavior. However, I am interested in both basic research questions related to sensory ecology as well as applied conservation research in a variety of animals.
I am an outdoorsy person who has enjoyed hiking, camping, and kayaking as a part of work. I find living in different countries and working with people from other cultural backgrounds stimulating and an exciting challenge. I personally like adding to my own linguistic repertoire and have really enjoyed learning Kiswahili in the last few years. Since finishing fieldwork, I’ve been working on coding in MATLAB for signal processing, data analysis, and writing. Feel free to explore my current and past research projects, and community outreach involvement on the other pages in this site. Karibu tena!