The BARKS LAB Research Team

Principal Investigator

Tamás Faragó, PhD (Tamsa)

Tamsa founded BARKS LAB, so he can happily study dog vocal communication.

tamas.farago[at]ttk.elte.hu

Assistant Professors

Ákos Pogány, PhD

Postdocs

Zsófia Bognár, PhD (Zsófi)

Her main field of research is the connection between head shape and behaviour in dogs. She investigates the effects of brachycephalism (flat face) on dog behaviour, as well as public attitudes towards brachycephalic dogs. At the BARKS LAB, she is also interested in how the selection for extremely short head shapes has influenced dogs’ vocalisations.

zsofia.bognar[at]ttk.elte.hu

Paula Pérez Fraga, PhD

Paula is deeply interested in animal-human communication and animal emotions. At BARKS LAB, her research explores indicators of dogs’ inner states by examining the connections between physiological measurements, vocalizations, and behavior.

paulapefraga[at]staff.elte.hu

Rita Lenkei, PhD

Rita is interested in many aspects of dog behaviour, such as the evolutionary and functional aspects of the dog-human bond, as well as the capacity of dogs to represent themselves. Here, at the BARKS lab, she is developing behavioural test batteries to describe dogs’ vocal repertoire and their cooperativeness.

rita.lenkei[at]ttk.elte.hu

László Róbert Zsiros, PhD (rblc)

He’s building a “Shazam for dogs”, a Machine Learning pipeline that helps process and classify massive amounts of canine audio data. He’s also contributes to the Neuro team by working on the development of a sensor cap to monitor brain activity using infrared light (fNIRS).

rblc[at]staff.elte.hu

Predocs

Zsombor Varga

Zsombor joined the group to discover the endless mysteries of dogs’ genomes.

zsombor.varga[at]ttk.elte.hu

PhD Students

Franceska Furik (Franci)

Franceska is involved in identifying the neural correlates associated with spontaneous and intentional vocalisations in dogs.

franceska.furik[at]ttk.elte.hu

Balázs Szigeti

In his doctoral research, Balázs examines the vocal reporter of family dogs using a questionnaire survey and laboratory behavior tests. He is interested in how the vocal repertoire of dogs is related to their cooperative ability and genetic distance from wolves.

szigbali[at]student.elte.hu

Farkas János Tóth

Farkas investigates how environmental factors influence dogs’ vocal behaviour, combining questionnaire responses, field-recorded data, and evolutionary modelling.

MSc Students

Csenge Reisinger

Csenge is interested in animal behaviour and welfare. In her project, she wants to find out how a dog’s internal state can be revealed through vocalisations, physiological measurements, and behavioural patterns.

csenge.reisinger[at]ttk.elte.hu

Tünde Aida Larionov

She has always had a fascination with genetics and dogs, so she joined the BARKS lab to do the genetic part of the project.

lavatu[at]student.elte.hu

BSc Students

Petra Szögi

Petra joined the BARKS Lab so she can study the genetic background of different dog vocalizations and help with other behavioral tests going on in the group.

szogipetra[at]student.elte.hu

Research Assistants

Róza Haraszti (Rozi)

Rozi has been interested in Ethology since the age of thirteen. They are helping the BARKS group in the classification of dog vocalizations and in behaviour tests.

haraszro6-r[at]student.elte.hu