people

Andrea Ravignani (ABCBBC lab’s PI) holds a PhD in Biology (2014, Universität Wien) and an MSc in Mathematics (2010, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).

Over the last twenty years, he has studied and worked at fifteen European institutions, from AI labs to marine mammalogy field stations. He is a Full Professor of Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and Honorary Professor of Neuroscience and Music at Aarhus University, Denmark.

His interdisciplinary and international research group investigates the psychological, (neuro)biological, and evolutionary bases of music, working with humans and many other species. He has received funding from the European Research Council, Max Planck Society, and Human Frontier Science Program.

Arianna Monteleone is a master student conducting her final project at the ABCBBC Lab. Already a master graduate at Lund University in Animal Ecology, she’s doing now an M2 with the ENES lab (International Master in Bioacoustics). With Ravignani’s lab, she is conducting a study on the vocal ontogeny of one Grey seal pup, following the development of its vocalizations from birth until weaning. The project focuses on the description and classification of mother attraction calls, and which behaviors are associated with the vocalizations through video monitoring.

Francesca D’Orazio has a background in biology, with a focus on Ethology and Comparative Neuroscience.

My research explores the evolutionary origins of rhythm and musicality from a comparative perspective. I am particularly interested in understanding how different components, such as vocal learning, respiratory control, and rhythmic abilities, have co-evolved across species, and how their interaction may have contributed to the emergence of the complex capacities underlying human speech and musicality.

My current work primarily involves pinnipeds, particularly seals and sea lions, although I previously worked with penguins during my Master’s research. Most of my research is conducted in zoological settings, where I work closely with animals trained through operant conditioning. In the future, I hope to expand my research to a broader range of species and increasingly combine studies in managed care with research conducted in the wild Alongside research, I also work as Lab Coordinator, helping to support the lab’s activities and day- to-day operations.

In my free time, I enjoy theatre, films, sports, and sharing a beer with friends.

Jelle van der Werff is inspired by the power that (electronic) music has over society, subcultures, and people themselves, and set out to study the most regular of rhythms, like a metronome, or the simplest of drumbeats.

Throughout my efforts to study how humans perceive such ‘isochrony’, a different question arose, namely: What is the opposite of isochrony? If isochrony constitutes the most regular and predictive of beats, what then is the least predictive of beats? And how does the brain process such irregularity?

My PhD projects are therefore aimed at defining the two boundaries within which all different types of rhythms—more or less enjoyable—are possible: isochrony on the one hand, and the highest form of irregularity on the other.

Kelsey Schultz earned her PhD at the University of Oregon in the Department of Biology and the Institute of Neuroscience.

Her doctoral work focused on motor systems neurophysiology and inhibitory control, but she has long held an immense interest in mechanisms of time perception, which she is now pursuing as a postdoctoral researcher. Her current research investigates evolutionary origins of mechanisms underlying rhythm perception by using scalp EEG to explore electrophysiological correlates of rhythm perception in harbor seals.

Outside of research, she is an avid aerialist, scuba diver, and dog mom.

Teresa Raimondi has a background in natural sciences and earned her PhD in Biology in 2023 at the University of Turin (Italy). Her doctoral research investigated the spontaneous production of vocal rhythms in non-human primates, with the goal of uncovering the evolutionary roots of specific rhythmic abilities across the primate clade.

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the ABCBBC Lab, supported by Prof. Andrea Ravignani’s ERC project The Origins of Human Rhythm and by the HFSP project Social Origins of Rhythm. My research focuses on bioacoustics, particularly the evolution of rhythmic features in vocalizations, as well as vocal development and vocal flexibility. I study animals both in the wild and in zoological settings, and have worked across taxa including birds, horses, pinnipeds, and non-human primates. Looking ahead, I aspire to link research on animal communication with conservation efforts.

In my free time, I enjoy gardening and exploring nature.

Vesta Eleuteri has a background in Philosophy and Psychology and earned her PhD in Biology from the University of Vienna in 2026.

My research focuses broadly on animal social cognition and communication, with a particular interest in understanding the evolution of language through a comparative perspective. For my MSc, I investigated individual and regional variation in the acoustic structure and rhythm of chimpanzee buttress drumming. I then completed a MSc by Research examining syntax, reference, and teaching in chimpanzee gestural communication. My doctoral research explored goal-directed intentionality and multimodality in elephant gestural communication. My current work aims to describe the full repertoire and meanings of elephant gestures and to understand how elephants gesture interactively to mediate their goals. Over the past decade, I have conducted field research and conservation across Africa and have become particularly committed to helping protect elephants for generations to come. Outside of research, I share my life with Milo, a wonderfully weird dog.

Yannick Jadoul is a computational bioacoustician with a background in computer science and artificial intelligence. With a keen interest in applying computational methods in a broader, multidisciplinary scientific context, he has mostly put his quantitative background to use for studying the evolution of speech, language, and music.

After an initial focus on human speech and pattern mining, his research interests further expanded to include acoustic analysis and modeling of vocal behavior in seals, quantitative analysis of rhythmic production in other animals, as well as agent-based modeling of communication and rhythmic interactions across species. Yannick is also the author of Parselmouth, a Python library for the Praat phonetics software, and has co-authored and contributed to several other open-source packages.