Can we talk to the animals?
In this special event, the 2026 winner of the Coller Dolittle Prize Julie Elie, will present her work on decoding the language of zebra finches.
This will be followed by a panel discussion, exploring cutting‑edge developments in understanding animal cognition, emotion and welfare, and considering their implications for science, ethics and policy.
Meet our speakers and chair
Julie Elie is an Associate Project Scientist at University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines communication sounds and the neural control of vocal production and perception, focussed on zebra finches and Egyptian fruit bats. She holds a Bachelor and Master in Molecular and Cell Biology from Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and completed her PhD in Saint Etienne.
Irene Pepperberg is a Research Professor at Boston University and has authored nearly 200 peer‑reviewed publications, The Alex Studies and the bestseller Alex & Me. She has received Guggenheim, Selby and Radcliffe Fellowships, the Christopher Clavius Award and the 2020 Comparative Cognition Society Research Award. For almost 50 years, she has trained Grey parrots to use English speech referentially and employed this to examine their intelligence.
Yossi Yovel is a Professor in the Department of Zoology at Tel-Aviv University since 2011. He was trained as an undergrad in physics and biology. He received a masters in Neurobiology from Tel-Aviv University and a PhD in biology from Tuebingen University in Germany.
Jonathan Birch is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the new Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at LSE. In 2021, he led a "Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans" that led to invertebrate animals including octopuses, crabs and lobsters being included in the UK government's Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. In 2024, he published The Edge of Sentience: risk and precaution in humans, other animals, and AI, an Open Access book.
More about this event
Join us on campus or register to watch the event online at LSE Live. LSE Live is the home for our live streams, allowing you to tune in and join the global debate at LSE, wherever you are in the world. If you can't attend live, a video will be made available shortly afterwards on LSE's YouTube channel.
The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience is dedicated to improving the lives of non-human animals through interdisciplinary, impact-oriented research across the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It is a research unit within LSE Philosophy, with this event being part of the departmental “Philosophy Live” series.
Hosted by the Jeremy Coller Foundation in partnership with Tel-Aviv University, the Coller Dolittle Prize celebrates outstanding research advancing the science of animal sentience. The Prize is a multi-year challenge with an annual award recognising significant scientific research that supports the aim of interspecies communication.
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