Anya Parks is a Ph.D. student studying the evolution of social communication in dogs and humans at George Washington University. She has a specific interest in the cognitive requirements for language, joint attention, teaching, and imitation learning. Anya explores these questions using interdisciplinary approaches that combine ecology and developmental, comparative psychology.
Her favorite part of her work is helping her students. As an early career researcher, she is currently developing skills in R and Python coding languages, in addition to her extensive background in evolutionary, and behavioral ecology. She also has experience in website design and copywriting. In her free time, you’ll find her running, drawing, reading, or working with her furry friend, Stella.
I actually owe this new friendship to Remi, who first encountered Stella, Anya’s pup, in our Coolidge Park dog run. Remi is responsible for many lovely conversations with Anya, whose intelligence, warmth, and always fascinating conversations about human-dog relationships and dog-dog relationships reminded me of my encounters decades ago with Professor Michael Fox at Washington University St. Louis, an expert in behavioral and developmental animal studies. I reached out to him as the author of Understanding Your Dog, when I spent several wonderful years working with Bianca, my Samoyed rescue dog.