“Can we benefit animal lives, reduce boredom, and make sure we’re not just doing that for entertainment of humans?” Kleinberger asks, outlining the project’s fundamental goals. Having the support is a total dream come true,” Cunha says.Ĭunha is working with Rébecca Kleinberger, a Northeastern professor with a dual appointment in music and computer science, along with faculty at partner universities, to launch a lab at the Khoury College of Computer Science and the College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) dedicated to studying animals and technology-from prototyping new products to creating an ethical framework around the treatment of the animal subjects in such research. “Northeastern is such an incredible university. The Northeastern affiliation came after years of forging an independent research career and collaborating with institutions including the University of Miami, Western Oregon University, MIT and the University of Glasgow. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University Photos by Matthew Moodono/Northeastern UniversityĪ property lawyer by training with no formal research background beyond a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience, Cunha signed on with Northeastern as a researcher last fall. Furthermore, they’re at the forefront of an emerging body of research geared at leveraging technology to better understand and enrich the lives of animals in human care-from pet parrots and dogs to zoo animals and livestock. But Ellie’s “tricks” are the outgrowth of rigorous study and peer-reviewed findings. On the surface, these displays can seem like mere fun diversions, straight out of David Letterman’s old late-night “Stupid Pet Tricks” segments-casting agents for “America’s Got Talent” have tried to get Cunha and Ellie on the show more than once. With Ellie and her two other cockatoos, Isabelle (a rescue with an amputated foot) and Tillie (a super-rare red-vented cockatoo, age 25), Cunha “already had too many opinions about music in the house,” she says. She once considered teaching the squirrels, too, to pick tunes, but decided against it. Later, she requests “music,” then “piano” and “Beethoven.”Ĭunha puts on a “classical solo piano” Pandora station. When she gets them, she taps the on-screen buttons to make the tablet say “Yum” and “Happy,” in frenzied succession. She can tell Cunha she’s hungry, and for what treats when she’s feeling scared or happy and when she wants to read a board book or listen to music.ĭuring the conversation, Ellie taps a sequence of images on the screen to ask for a treat of sunflower seeds. A pink-tinged white parrot the size of a dove, Ellie can read basic words, draw 14 letters on a touchpad with her beak, and communicate a wide array of complex feelings and requests on her tablet. That would be Ellie, Cunha’s 11-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo and primary collaborator for the better part of a decade. Northeastern University assistant professor Rébecca Kleinberger. She uses her nose to jab the multi-colored balloons that float onto the screen, making satisfying “Bop!” sounds as they burst.īut Holly, incredibly, is not the main attraction. Soon, Holly scampers up, selects from the menu of options, and settles into a game of “Balloon Pop”-familiar to anyone who knows a preschooler. She dabs peanut butter on the screen of a Samsung Galaxy device outfitted with a foam purple case, worn with scratches and bite marks, and sets it down on her back deck. An affiliated researcher with Northeastern University, Cunha began training two squirrels, dubbed “Noel” and “Holly,” to use a tablet when Noel wandered into her kitchen’s open door last year-mangy, sick and clearly hungry.Īfter getting them healthy, “I said, ‘Listen, ladies, I’ll feed you, but you’re going to work for it,’” she recalls. This is the first tech-savvy critter Jen Cunha introduces at her home in Jupiter, Florida, on a sun-soaked morning in early March. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University. Northeastern researcher Jen Cunha interacts with her 11-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo, Ellie, at her home in Jupiter, Florida.
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