Chi Hsin Chen

Born in Kaohsiung/Taiwan.

Chi is an animal behavior scientist. She has studied wild bonobos in the Kokolopori jungle, Democratic Republic of Congo (2022–2023), chimpanzees in Ivory Coast (2018), meerkats in the Kalahari desert (2024–2026), and humans in laboratory settings (2014–2018). She is passionate about wildlife, animal cognition, evolutionary psychology and anthropology. She loves outdoor adventures and the visual arts, and always seizes every opportunity to observe wildlife, to collect and to create artwork from all around the world. Her watercolor journal has been a good companion during her remote fieldwork and voyages. She exhibited her artwork in the small southern French town of Arre, in the Cévennes (2023).

Chi holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Marburg (2016–2020, Marburg/Germany) and a MSc in Ethology from Université  Sorbonne Paris Nord (2020–2022, Paris/France). Her current PhD project at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (2023–2027, Germany) focuses on understanding how social, cooperative mammal groups communicate about and respond to »threats in the air«. To address this question, she has traveled to the Kalahari Desert in South Africa to collect behavioral data from wild meerkats. Apart from traditional behavioral observation, she uses automated bio-loggers to collect synchronized data of audio, movement data of each individual meerkat within an entire social group.

Besides her scientific interest in animal cognition, she often thinks about what animals think, perceive or even dream about (in a subjective way). She enjoys letting these wild imaginations flow through her art and is excited about collaborating with the Solitude artists.

Chi’s residency is part of »Field Trip« – a transdisciplinary residency program between Akademie Schloss Solitude and Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz.