Irene Pepperberg

Adjunct professor at Brandeis University and Lecturer and research associate at Harvard University

Irene Pepperberg appears in the following:

A Form of Hope

Friday, April 01, 2011

We begin in the middle of a phone call with Lulu Miller, who tells us the story of a couple with a seemingly unsolvable problem. It's the 1970s, and Richard and Tucker are very much in love. They'd like to get married, but it's against the law. And that would have been the end of the story...except that Richard, worried about Tucker and frustrated that he couldn't legally provide for him, came up with a very unusual (but totally legal) solution.

Lulu says these moments, where one little switch can reframe reality, are a kind of duct tape for the ethereal sadness. It's a form of hope, where an imperfect workaround opens up a door and makes life a little bit better.

And that brings us to a man named Jim Eggers, who suffers from a problem that not only puts his life at risk--it jeopardizes the safety of everybody around him. Producer Pat Walters explains how Jim found a way to manage his anger with the help of a bird named Sadie. African Grey Parrot expert Irene Pepperberg helps us understand how this could work, and shares some insights from her work with a parrot named Alex.

 

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A Flock of Two

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

In today's short, we get to know a man who struggles, and mostly fails, to contain his violent outbursts...until he meets a bird who can keep him in check.
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Avian Einsteins

Friday, June 12, 2009

Leading bird scientists Erich Jarvis and Irene Pepperberg explore how striking parallels between bird and human brains are providing new insights into how we acquire language and links between hearing and movement. Neurobiologist Erich Jarvis leads a Duke University team that studies how songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds learn and pass ...

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Alex the Parrot

Monday, November 03, 2008

The African Grey parrot Alex mastered a vocabulary of more than 100 words and could answer questions about color, shapes and numbers. Scientist Irene Pepperberg worked with Alex for 30 years until his death in 2007; she talks about their deep bond in her new book Alex ...

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