About the Author(s)

Sylvia L. Halkin received her A.B. from Harvard University in 1977, and her M.S. (1983) and Ph.D. (1990) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a Professor in the Biology Department at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, where she teaches courses in ornithology, animal behavior, and introductory biology and ecology. She is particularly interested in how birds use their vocal repertoires. In addition to use of song by both male and female Northern Cardinals, the topic of her Ph.D. and subsequent research, she has studied vocalizations of Black-capped Chickadees, Eastern Bluebirds, Northern Mockingbirds, and Emus. She conducts research on nut-caching behavior of eastern gray squirrels with her students, who have also drawn her happily into other field projects (e.g., possible mutualism between strangler figs and their host trees...). Email: halkin@ccsu.edu.

Daniel P. Shustack received his M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont (2004) and a Ph.D. from the School of Environment and Natural Resources at the Ohio State University (2008). As part of his dissertation research he studied the reproductive ecology of the Northern Cardinal in urbanizing landscapes of central Ohio. Now, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, he continues to study the ecology of forest songbirds across all seasons. Shustack is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. Email: d.shustack@mcla.edu

M. Susan DeVries received her B.S. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (2002), her M.S. from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (2007), and her Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi (2013). She was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2013–2015. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she teaches courses in endocrinology, anatomy and physiology, and introductory biology. Her lab investigates links between physiology, behavior, and immunity in the Northern Cardinal and compares these relationships in multiple populations across the cardinal’s distribution range. Email: devriesm@uww.edu.

Jodie M. Jawor received her B.S. (1992) and M.S. (1998) from Ball State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Dayton in 2002. Following her post-doctoral research at Indiana University (2003–2006) she was a faculty member at the University of Southern Mississippi (2006–2015). Currently she is an affiliated researcher in the Biology Department at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and works at the National Science Foundation. She has worked with the Northern Cardinal at various locations in its eastern range, studying topics in behavioral ecology, behavioral endocrinology, and endocrine physiology. Email: jjawor@nmsu.edu.

Susan U. Linville received her B.S. (1984) and M.S. (1992) from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. from the University of Dayton in 1997. She has worked as adjunct faculty at Ivy Tech State College and Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She was assistant editor for the Journal of Comparative Psychology, and Outreach Coordinator at the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior at Indiana University. She is currently a freelance writer in New Castle, Pennsylvania, where she publishes books, articles, blogs, and writes podcasts for Indiana University’s A Moment of Science Series. Email: sue.linville@gmail.com.