Dec 16, 2025
When Joshua Plotnik was a kid, he wanted to become a veterinarian
and day dreamed of a future caring for animals large and small. By
the time he got to college, he eagerly worked with every type of
vet he could think of, from small animal vets to large animal horse
veterinarians. On a summer break from his undergraduate studies at
Cornell University, he interned as a zookeeper at the Central Park
Zoo, and a mentor there encouraged him to reach out to the
internationally-acclaimed primatologist Dr. Franz de Waal, known
for his research on cooperation in primates. When the young student
approached Dr. de Waal to ask if he might take him on as a PhD
candidate, Dr. de Waal extended an invitation — the chance of a
lifetime. Dr. Plotnik started researching chimpanzee behavior —
where a lot of psychology researchers land, he says.
But Dr. Plotnik's interests soon expanded to question how those
similarities evolve across these different species, if it's not due
to a common ancestor?
With that fascination driving his work, Dr. Plotnik soon asked Dr. de Waal for his support setting up a field site where he could immerse himself in researching the behavioral flexibility of one the largest animals he'd worked with yet: Elephants. And so, for the last two decades, Dr. Plotnik's research has focused on wild and captive elephants primarily located in Thailand. Now an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Comparative Cognition for Conservation Lab at Hunter College, City University of New York, he's currently wrapping up a years-long study about elephant intelligence.
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