In 2009, I became a member of Dr. Regina Macedo’s Animal Behavior Lab at UnB as a PhD student in Ecology. In my thesis, I investigated the mating system of Blue-black Grassquit, a Neotropical socially monogamous bird with a cryptic polyandrous sexual system. We sought to understand how sexual selection influences the social and sexual (genetic) mating behavior in this species. During this period, we ran paternity molecular analyzes in the Molecular Ecology Lab at the University of St Andrews under supervision of Prof. Dr. Jeff Graves. I also visited Dr. Jeff Podos’ lab at University of Massachusetts in Amherst to analyze videos and sound recordings of the Blue-black Grassquit. After my PhD, I spent six months at Regina’s lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow.