Birdsong is absolutely a highly developed field of study where we have gotten down to the neural level, down to the genomic level, and the environmental influences . . . . People often believe . . . that understanding how birds learn their songs helps us understand how people learn to talk.

Ellen Ketterson is a distinguished professor of biology and a founding member and former co-director of the IU Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior.

She is an internationally-known evolutionary biologist who specializes in animal behavior, and has made several discoveries that have put her at the forefront of evolutionary biology.

Ketterson has served as editor or associate editor of all the major journals in evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and avian biology, and has received many awards including the Margaret Morse Nice medal, which she won jointly with husband and collaborator Val Nolan, to honor a lifetime of contributions to ornithology.