If money and time was no object, what research idea would you investigate?

Probably exactly what I’m doing now (coevolution between brood parasites and hosts), which explains why I’m doing it. A little more money and time wouldn’t hurt though!

Who was your PhD supervisor, and what was the best thing you learned from them?

Nick Davies – a deep appreciation of elegant experimental design, dessert wines and all things cuckoo.

Which paper of yours is your favourite?

The paper that arose from my Honours project, because it was my first experience of the biggest buzz of science – the excitement of discovering something about the world for the first time ever.

What is the worst review you’ve ever had?

The memory is too deeply repressed…

Which other evolutionary biologist’s work do you most admire and why?

Nick Davies – he’s a breath of fresh humble air in a world ruled by metric-driven megalomaniacs, he’s the consummate field biologist and he has a mind like a steel trap!

Dawkins or Gould?

I’m a die-hard Dawkins fan.

What is your earliest memory?

Hmmm, my earliest memories all involve encounters with animals – is that significant?

What was the last book you read?

‘Flight Behaviour’ by Barbara Kingsolver. Beautifully written, but it isn’t drawing me in as much as her earlier books.

Who would win a fight between a kiwi and an echidna?

Neither – they wouldn’t notice each other.

Cheese or chocolate?

Need you ask?! Behind every great paper (and the rubbish ones too), there’s a great bar of chocolate!

Tell us a secret that your colleagues don’t know about you

I’m a sucker for 90’s dance music.

Dr Naomi Langmore is Australian Research Council Research Fellow in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University. Most of her research concerns avian behavioural and evolutionary ecology, with particular focus on the coevolution of brood parasites and their host, and on the evolutionary significance of bird song. She will be a plenary speaker at the 2013 Australasian Evolution Society conference in Geelong. For more on her research click here!