Francine Dolins has her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Primatology from the University of Stirling in Scotland, and a BSc. in Biology (Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Theory) from the University of Sussex in England. Her research focuses on primate species cognitive abilities and their behavioral ecology. She has studied apes, monkeys and lemurs in free-ranging field conditions and experimentally in the laboratory. Her research investigates aspects of spatial and social cognition, specifically navigation and foraging behavior, including spatial memory, decision-making, cooperation, social communication involving information transfer and group ranging behavior.

 

Francine conducts fieldwork in Madagascar in addition to past projects in Costa Rica and Peru. Her fieldwork focuses on understanding the mechanisms of group ranging behavior, communication and decision-making in lemur's navigational and foraging behavior. Francine’s laboratory projects utilize virtual reality (VR) software specially developed to investigate nonhuman and human primate spatial cognition across species comparatively, specifically their use of environmental features and landmarks, spatial memory, and spatial decision-making. The project also investigates social cognition using VR with the addition of primate avatars.

 

Francine has collaborated with Drs. Alison Jolly, Jonah Ratsimbazafy (GERP, http://gerp.squarespace.com/) and Alison Grand (Lemur Conservation Foundation) on a conservation education project in Madagascar, The Ako Project. Francine also conducts Ako workshops in the Detroit Public Schools, with an emphasis on teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and comparisons of wildlife and conservation issues in Madagascar and the United States. The focus is on engaging children, ambassadors to their families and communities, with knowledge about the natural world, and the importance of local and global conservation efforts.

 

Francine has received numerous research grants from various private and public agencies that include the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) and The Ford Motor Company.  She is PI on the TWCF grant in the Diverse Intelligences division titled, “Primates in Virtual Space: Using Virtual Reality to Compare the Spatial Intelligence of Humans, Apes and Monkeys”. Her co-PIs include Drs. Josep Call, Charles Menzel, Karline Janmaat and Kenneth Schweller (https://www.templetonworldcharity.org/our-work/diverse-intelligences). This project focuses on investigating the understanding of equivalence and transfer of knowledge between what is learned in the virtual environments and that of the real world, as well as investigating social cognition (through Theory of Mind paradigms) using avatars.

 

Francine is currently working with a team at MIT (Drs. Josh Tenenbaum, Max Kleiman-Weiner) to compare her chimpanzee and human data generated using VR with that of artificial agents (AI), to identify similarities and differences between their learning and modes of problem solving.

 

Francine teaches at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in the Department of Behavioral Sciences, College of Arts, Sciences & Letters. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology. She teaches courses in 'Experimental Psychology', 'Animal Behavior', 'Animal Cognition', 'Capstone in Behavioral & Biological Sciences', 'Primate Field Methods', 'Wild Things: Attitudes to Being Human, Being Animal', and 'Introduction to Psychology'. In addition to Psychology, Francine also teaches in the Behavioral and Biological Sciences major, the Health Psychology and Clinical Health Psychology Masters program, and the Masters Program in Human Centered Design Studies in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. Francine is an elected Senator to the University of Michigan Faculty Senate, and is on the Council of the University of Michigan Chapter of Sigma Xi, the national science honors society.

 

Link to ResearchGate webpage: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francine_Dolins

 

Contact Details:
Francine L. Dolins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Department of Behavioral Sciences
College of Arts, Sciences & Letters
University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Road
Dearborn, Michigan 48128 USA

office tel. 313-593-5520
email: fdolins@umich.edu