Simone Pika has spent over a decade studying the diversity of animals' communicative systems and underlying cognitive mechanisms in captive and natural settings with a special focus on primates and corvids. Recently, she extended this research avenue to include artifical intelligence, multi-modal communication, phenomena of convergent evolution and turn-taking.

Bas van Boekholt started his PhD in 2020 in the CBC Group. He did his masters at Utrecht University, the Netherlands and has studied the flexibility of vocal communication in vervet monkeys in South Africa and reconciliation in long-tailed macaques. His PhD will focus on the development of turn-taking and social skills of chimpanzees living in the Ngogo community, Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Lara Southern started her PhD in the CBC group in November 2019. Her research examines the turntaking in wild chimpanzees. She is particularly interested in the environmental factors unique to Loango National Park in Gabon and their subsequent effect on the communicative interactions between the individuals of the Rekambo community.