UC Berkeley scientist wins $100,000 birdsong prize (opens in new tab)

Julie Elie, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, won the 2026 Coller-Dolittle Prize for two-way interspecies communication, a $100,000 award, for research decoding zebra finch vocalizations. The research identified 11 core calls in the zebra finch vocal repertoire and linked them to meanings, including how the birds communicate identity and activity. Elie’s work found that zebra finches can recognize one another through individual vocal signatures regardless of the specific ...