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About Darren
Professor Darren Croft is Professor of Behavioural Ecology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter. He serves as Co-Deputy Head of Department, Director of Research, and co-lead of the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB). Since October 2023, he has been Executive Director of the Center for Whale Research in the USA. Croft earned his B.Sc. in Biology from 1996 to 1999 and his Ph.D. in Behavioural Ecology from 2000 to 2003 at the University of Leeds. He completed two postdoctoral positions at Leeds: one on social recognition mechanisms in fish from 2004 to 2005 funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and another on particle swarm intelligence from 2005 to 2006 funded by the EPSRC. In 2006, he was appointed Lecturer in Animal Behaviour at Bangor University, where he taught an M.Sc. course in marine mammal behaviour. He joined the University of Exeter in 2008 and was promoted to full Professor in 2016.
Croft's research centres on the ecology and evolution of group living, combining experimental and observational studies in natural populations, with a focus on animal social networks and marine mammals such as killer whales. He has published over 150 scientific papers and authored two books. Key publications include 'Exploring Animal Social Networks' (2008, 1126 citations), 'Social Network Theory in the Behavioural Sciences: Potential Applications' (2007, 687 citations), 'Hypothesis Testing in Animal Social Networks' (2011, 638 citations), 'Animal Social Networks' (2015, 586 citations), and 'Ecological Knowledge, Leadership, and the Evolution of Menopause in Killer Whales' (2015, 465 citations). His long-term collaboration with the Center for Whale Research has yielded 20 co-authored papers on Southern Resident killer whales, addressing social influences on survival and reproduction, including menopause evolution. This work secured four grants totalling over $2 million from the UK government. Croft's findings have appeared in BBC Radio 4's 'The Menopausal Whale' documentary and a TED-Ed video viewed over 1.6 million times. He chairs the Research Grants Panel for the Fisheries Society of the British Isles and serves on advisory boards for Elephants for Africa in Botswana and the Centre for Integrative Biology of Toulouse.
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