Episode 6 - Laurie Bloomfield

Laurie Bloomfield is an associate professor of psychology at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada.


Laurie grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, and did
her BA at Algoma University College (1996-2000). Based on some fascinating
research she had learned about during several classes with one particular
professor (Laurie claims this was me), she was the only student to
conduct her Honours thesis study on animal behaviour (a trend that hasn’t seemed
to have changed in years at AU). Also while at Algoma University College she was a
teaching assistant in Psychology and the Assistant Manager and bartender for
the T-Bird Lounge, which at the time was open all day on Thursdays, and
students and professors alike met and enjoyed a beverage or two.





Laurie Bloomfield, she's my boss....

In 2000 she began work on her Master’s degree
at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario with Ron Weisman. There she investigated vocal production and perception in chickadees, as well as learned
techniques to explore the neural correlates of auditory perception. She received
the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Academic Excellence for her Master’s
thesis which examined in detail the morphology and phonology of the
“chick-a-dee” call of the eastern Carolina chickadee, and the perception of
this species’ call by the closely related black-capped chickadee.



She then (2002) went to the University of
Alberta in Edmonton to work with Chris Sturdy. There she continued her investigation of auditory perception in chickadees by examining the morphology
and phonology of the chick-a-dee call of the western Mountain chickadee. Several
lab studies that followed attempted to determine which acoustic features were
most important to the birds in making species-specific discriminations.



Immediately following the completion of her PhD (2007) she turned down an NSERC post-doc to start as Assistant Professor at
Algoma University….  where it all began.



Why continue to work with the chickadees?
Well, they produce that chick-a-dee call that is a perfect model for
understanding perception. It can be broken down into several components to
determine what the birds are paying attention to, and perhaps then we can
figure out why they modify this call. In other words, what are they trying to
say? It’s sort of like attempting to learn another language.  



Laurie and I talked about a lot of different things, her present research, her inspirations, and other stuff.  This one was fun for me as it was the first non Skype interview I have done.  Laurie is also the first woman I have had on the show, which is a long overdue thing.  Oh yeah, and she is like four doors down the hall from me at work....

Thanks again to Red Arms for letting me mash up their music in the closing theme. Buy their music now.






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