Rate My Professor Elissa Cameron

Cameron investigates cryptic social bonds and friendships among animals, demonstrating through Kaimanawa horse studies that these relationships enhance reproductive success and drive behavioural changes akin to those in humans, influenced by companions and environment. She has elucidated biological mechanisms biasing offspring sex ratios, revealing roles of maternal condition—including glucose levels—and paternal fertilisation timing in horses and mice. Ongoing work examines possum learning via observation and giraffe sensory ecology alongside mole-rats. A leader in conservation, she co-chairs the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group and served on the Tasmanian Devil Programme Steering Group from 2012 to 2018. Cameron earned the University of Canterbury Research Medal in 2022 and was elected a Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2025 for her wildlife biology and conservation contributions. As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Zoology, she advances the field. Notable publications include Social bonds between unrelated females increase reproductive success in feral horses (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009) and Stallion harassment and the mating system of horses (Animal Behaviour, 1999). She promotes equity and diversity in science through mentoring.