Flinders University Professor of Animal Behaviour Sonia Kleindorfer has been made an honorary fellow of the American Ornithological Society.

Members of the American Ornithological Society advance the scientific study and conservation of birds. The world’s largest international ornithological society, AOS members disseminate ornithological knowledge, enrich ornithology as a profession and mentor young professionals, and promote a rigorous scientific basis for the conservation of birds.

US born Professor Kleindorfer, who did a PhD in zoology at the University of Vienna where she is currently based, has led a number of long running avian conservation projects involving Australian songbirds, Diamond Firetail finches and other Charles Darwin Foundation research in the Galápagos Ecuador, as well as birds in the Pacific – including in PNG and Flinders University New Colombo Mobility Plan research in the Fijian islands.

As well as joining ranks with the prestigious AOS 2020 Class of Fellows and Elective Members, she was awarded the DL Serventy Medal by BirdLife Australia in 2016 for outstanding research on birds.

With a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and postdoctoral study at the University of Washington School of Medicine, she is an organismal systems biologist with a research focus on how animal behaviour shapes evolutionary dynamics in birds and parasites.

Professor Kleindorfer is involved in a special study of bird behaviour at Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills, supported by the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy program.

A short documentary, featuring Professor Kleindorfer, Dr Diane Colombelli-Négrel and Flinders postdoc Andrew Katsis, received an award at the Royal Wolf Film Festival earlier this year.

One aspect of the Cleland study is to compare the birdsong of male and female Superb Fairy Wren breeding pairs.