October 2025. A National Geographic article about how social snakes are, much of it about our work and featuring photos of our snakes, taken by lab members (requires a free account to read).

April 2024. Noam was one of the original signatories of the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness. You can watch Noam's talk about sentience in reptiles at the launch event at NYU, here. The declaration got a lot of press. Noam was interviewed about it by the Canadian Press and Ha'aretz (in Hebrew).

April 2024. Our new paper on mirror self-recognition in snakes was covered by the New York Times, New Scientist, Smithsonian Magazine, Psychology Today, and National Geographic Spain (in Spanish).

April 2023. A new video by Laurier's PR team, highlighting our research at evolv1 - including interviews with Manuel Riemer and Noam. Here.

May 2020. A news article in Science about our recent garter snake paper. Also one in National Geographic, on the Mother Nature Network, in the Smithsonian Magazine, in Ha'aretz (an Israeli daily newspaper; in Hebrew), and in La Republica (Italian daily newspaper; in Italian).

October 2019. Noam's public lecture in Waterloo, as part of the RCIScience series, is advertised here.

March 2019. Noam was part of a panel on TVO's "The Agenda", in an episode on "What animals think and feel". Watch it here.

February 2018. Video of Noam's talk at McMaster University's PNB Seminar Series is here.

February 2017. Video of a public lecture featuring recent Banting Discovery Award winners, including Noam, is here (Noam's talk starts at 41:45).

July 2016. Our Banting Research Foundation Discovery Award is explained here.

July 2015. Noam dicusses his research on Dave Brodbeck's "Spit and Twitches: The Animal Cognition Podcast". Here (Episode 4).

As members of the Collective Cognition Lab at Laurier, we commit to fostering a culture of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). To us, this means creating a workplace environment where all members feel valued, respected, supported, and given space to voice their opinions. We also strongly support Laurier’s EDI action plan and commitment to inclusion in research. We hope that the ethic reflected in this document will not only be reflected in our attitudes and behaviours as members of the academic community at Laurier and beyond, but also be something that we will carry with us in our future private and professional lives.

We are making efforts to respond to the systemic biases and barriers that have affected the full participation of historically underrepresented groups in STEM, and especially in neuroscience. This document reflects our commitment to recruiting, including, and supporting underrepresented groups, because we believe including people of different experiences, cultures, and knowledge results in a more vibrant and robust research community. Many of us are fortunate enough not to feel the full effects and extent of discrimination, and are therefore in a position to take action against it, helping people who have previously or currently experience discrimination in STEM.

We believe that:

• Incorporating diversity in research benefits everyone, improves problem-solving, helps check biases, and leads to more comprehensive and robust research findings.
• A strong EDI-focused environment allows all lab members to feel respected, valued, and supported, and therefore comfortable sharing their perspectives and ideas. A wider variety of perspectives and ideas will result in more well-rounded and stronger research projects, and potentially novel solutions to problems.

We therefore expect all members of the lab to:

• Use language that is inclusive and respectful when speaking with other lab members and in all academic settings.
• Commit to self-learning in regards to EDI in academia, inclusive language, and how to be an ally to underrepresented groups in STEM. We encourage all lab members to participate in the workshops and online modules offered by Laurier.
• Remain open-minded and judgement-free when listening to other lab members’ perspectives, questions, and comments.
• Be aware of and acknowledge their own personal privilege and the effects it has in social dynamics within the academic community.
• Ensure all lab members are given space and opportunity to be heard and feel comfortable sharing their perspectives.
• Commit to active self-reflection and group accountability as an ongoing process.

There are opportunities in the lab for undergraduates conducting a research thesis or as research assistants. We have zebrafish and guppies in the lab at the moment but studying other species of (small) freshwater fish is possible. We also have Western hognose snakes and corn snakes. I am particularly interested in collective behavior but would be willing to supervise any reasonable project on animal cognition. Projects studying how social learning operates using fish or snakes are also interesting to me. I am also happy to supervise theoretical (simulation) projects on various aspects of collective behavior (foraging, learning, evolution of group behavior). Please contact me to discuss if you are interested in joining the lab.

I am not currently accepting any new graduate students.

Wilfrid Laurier University homepage
Laurier Psychology homepage
The Comparative Cognition Society
The Animal Behavior Society