We’re heartbroken to share the news that a beloved staff member, Dr. Emma Greig, passed away last month from cancer at the age of 43. Emma grew up in Michigan, earned her PhD at the University of Chicago, and performed fieldwork around the world. She came to the Lab in 2010 as a postdoctoral fellow, became a staff member in 2013, and led Project FeederWatch in the U.S. for more than 10 years. She was a vibrant person, an incisive and endlessly curious scientist, a caring leader, and a calm, funny, and energetic presence everywhere she went.
During her time leading FeederWatch, she transformed the project from a relatively straightforward bird count to a multifaceted project that delved into bird behavior while also exploring the connections between birds and the people who watch them.
She was devoted to Project FeederWatch participants, personally answering thousands of email inquiries and constantly advocating for their wants and needs when planning the future of the project. During her tenure, annual participation in Project FeederWatch roughly doubled, and Emma was often an expert voice on birding podcasts, webinars, and in newspaper and magazine articles helping people connect with birds and nature.
At the heart of Emma’s leadership style was her calm belief that all problems can be solved by looking at them with creativity and optimism. Staff members noted that she saw problems not as obstacles to be avoided but as puzzles to be investigated. In solving those puzzles, she brought a knack for focusing on the parts that really mattered and a sense of genuine curiosity that helped her find imaginative solutions.
Emma had a lifelong love of finches, and had raised Gouldian Finches in her home since childhood—sometimes 100 or more at a time. These brilliantly colored red, yellow, purple, and green songbirds are native to Australia and are widely captive-bred and kept as pets. Both wild and captive individuals occur in many striking color patterns, the basis of which is still poorly understood. Ever the curious scientist, Emma kept meticulous track of the color morphs and lineages of her own birds, and she collaborated on a major paper about the genetic basis of the phenomenon in 2019.
Her “finch fever” extended to other species as well: she joined a field expedition in Australia to study Long-tailed Finches; and while leading a student expedition in Kenya marveled at species such as Red-cheeked Cordonbleus and Purple Grenadiers that foraged around their base camp.
In addition to her own scientific work, Emma was a natural mentor with undergraduates. She had a special love of the Desert Southwest, and for more than a decade led student training expeditions to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. She had an incomparable ease with students who were taking their first steps into ornithology. Whether teaching them new concepts or showing them how to gently take a songbird out of a mist net, she had an instinctive way of making everything seem feasible and accessible. She was also an excellent sound recordist who taught sound analysis workshops and contributed hundreds of recordings to the Macaulay Library archive.
Emma’s varied research interests led her to author or coauthor more than 20 academic papers during her time at the Lab. She put FeederWatch data to use in a widely cited paper describing the range expansion of Anna’s Hummingbirds. During her field expeditions in Arizona she focused on the Verdin, a fascinating songbird that has no close relatives in North America. Emma published about their singing behavior and mentored undergraduate student projects focused on this species. During her postdoctoral work she crisscrossed Australia to study nine species of fairywrens. In a collaboration with former Lab researcher Eliot Miller, she introduced an option for FeederWatchers to record aggressive interactions between feeder birds. They used the resulting data to publish a continentwide hierarchy showing patterns of dominance among 136 species.
But beyond single accomplishments, it was Emma’s essential spirit that made her such a treasured colleague. Emma had the gift of listening to people with her full attention, and always with an unflappable, encouraging spirit. She had the confidence to embrace her passions and the enthusiasm to make them contagious to others. And no matter the topic, Emma approached discussions with an unassuming yet keen intellect that seemed always able to uncover new facets and insights.
We extend our deepest sympathies to those closest to Emma: her parents, sister, partner, young daughter, and to her many friends and colleagues. We miss her dearly.
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