Kristal grew-up chasing critters around the deep woods of East Texas. She got a BSc in Wildlife Biology from Texas A&M and then worked as a wildlife biologist for a time before returning to academia. She completed her PhD with Ellen Ketterson at Indiana University looking at why females in some species are ornamented or aggressive, and how hormones like testosterone control these traits. She moved to Australia to take-up a postdoctoral fellowship with Naomi Langmore and Andrew Cockburn working on the role of ecology in shaping female aggression and song in the superb fairy-wren. She’s now joined the Pryke lab and will be investigating the evolution of colours, hormones and behaviour using a quantitative genetics approach in Gouldian finches as part of a collaboration with Loeske Kruuk