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Dr Stephanie L. Mason is affiliated with the School of Biological Sciences and the Centre for Evolutionary Biology at the University of Western Australia. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia in 2025 with a thesis titled 'The emergence of multi-level combinatoriality in a life-long vocal learner: ontogenetic and structural evidence of socially learned call sequences in the Western Australian magpie'.
Her research focuses on vocal complexity and comparative linguistics, with particular attention to the development of call sequences in Western Australian magpies and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. In 2025, she led a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B that provided the first evidence of learned syntax in a non-human animal, tracking the vocal development of fledgling magpies over 200 days and demonstrating that complex call sequences are acquired through social learning rather than being innate. Dr Mason has contributed to additional research on the ontogeny of complex communication in songbirds and cetaceans. Her professional email address is stephanie.mason@uwa.edu.au.
Discover how young Western Australian magpies develop complex call sequences through social learning, mirroring human language acquisition. Insights from the landmark UWA study on bird syntax and cognition.
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