- Zoos: A Historical Perspective from Smithsonian Institution Libraries
The National Zoological Park is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums.
AZA
Erika Bauer, Ph.D., Biologist, Asia Trail and Giant Pandas
Animals
Education
John Carroll University, B.S., Biology, 1997
University of Michigan, M.S., Psychology (Biopsychology), 2002
University of Michigan, Ph.D., Psychology (Biopsychology), 2007
Professional History and Interests
Erika Bauer is the biologist for Asia Trail and Giant Pandas at the National Zoo, where she works with the animal care team that manages giant pandas, sloth bears, clouded leopards, fishing cats, Asian small-clawed otters, and red pandas.
She joined the Zoo's animal care staff in 2007 as the Fujifilm Curatorial Resident. During that residency, she completed a rotation with each of the animal care units at the Zoo, and established a Zoo-wide animal behavior research internship program. She has mentored numerous interns and facilitated several valuable research projects within the Zoo.
She has also worked as an animal keeper at Asia Trail, as biologist at the Kids' Farm and Cheetah Conservation Station exhibits, and as interim curator for Primates and Giant Pandas. In 2011 she developed and taught a course for staff on behavioral research methods as part of the professional development program initiated by the Zoo’s AAZK (American Association of Zoo Keepers) chapter.
Erika is an animal behavior researcher who has focused on the complex social interactions of animals for much of her career. Her dissertation research was a comparative study that examined how animals balance cooperation and competition during social play. She compared play strategies of domestic dogs, chimpanzees, and bonobos (a species of great ape very closely related to chimpanzees but with a markedly different social system) and investigated how their play strategies related to other factors in their social systems. Her field research has included studies of chimpanzee social behavior at a sanctuary in Zambia and maternal behavior of wild degus at a national park in Chile. In addition to her graduate work, before she came to the National Zoo she studied conflict resolution in elephants and orangutans, scent-marking behavior in cotton-top tamarins, and dolphin cognition.
At the National Zoo she has facilitated studies of a wide variety of animals, from cuttlefish to otters to great cats and bears. She is currently interested in applying science-based ethological methods to better understand how we can improve and enhance our care of zoo animals and best elicit the natural behaviors of animals in captivity.
Just prior to coming to the Zoo, Erika completed a Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship at the National Academies, learning about policies related to science education and focusing on educational issues related to learning science in informal environments such as zoological parks and aquariums.
