Ricardo Cossio is a NOMIS–STRI Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama City, Panama). He is conducting his research under the mentorship of William Wcislo and Rachel Page in the Laboratory for Animal Behavior.

Born in Panama, Cossio earned his BS in biology from the University of Panama. He completed his PhD studies at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover in Germany. His doctoral research focused on different aspects of animal personality, particularly how ecological factors shape individual behavioral differences across populations of a polytypic poison frog.

As a NOMIS–STRI Fellow, Cossio is focusing on the mechanisms driving the evolution of cognitive abilities. He is interested in understanding how variations in life history influence differences in spatial cognition, while exploring the neural mechanisms underlying these processes. To achieve this, he is comparing the hippocampal pallium across species with sex differences in parental care. Using cutting-edge techniques, Cossio will explore the neural circuits and gene networks to provide insight into how cognitive abilities evolve from ancestral neural features. He will apply integrative techniques and combine laboratory and field experiments to establish causal links between social behaviors and memory-based decision-making in animals as they navigate complex environments.