Susan Alberts | |
---|---|
Education | Reed College UCLA |
Alma mater | University of Chicago |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Primatology |
Institutions | Duke University Amboseli Baboon Research Project |
Susan C. Alberts is an American primatologist, anthropologist, and biologist who is the current Chair of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University; [1] previously, she served as a Bass fellow and the Robert F. Durden Professor of Biology at Duke. [2] She currently co-directs the Amboseli Baboon Research Project with Jeanne Altmann of Princeton University. [2] Her research broadly studies how animal behavior evolved in mammals, with a specific focus on the social behavior, demography, and genetics of the yellow baboon, although some of her work has included the African elephant. [2] She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, won the Cozzarelli Prize of the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, and was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019. [1] [3]
Alberts received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Reed College in 1983, and went on to earn a Master of Arts in Biology from University of California, Los Angeles in 1987. [1] [4] She earned her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution at University of Chicago in 1992 for her work with her advisor, Jeanne Altmann. [1] [4] Her dissertation examined the maturation and dispersal of male baboons. [5] She pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago as an NIH Fellow, and was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University, and a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe. She has been on the faculty at Duke since 1998. [6]
Alberts' research focuses on the interplay between environment, genetics, and behavior. [2] She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in the fields of anthropology, genetics, endocrinology, biology, and primatology. [7] Early in her career, her research focused largely on the behavior of male baboons through dispersal, mate guarding, social rank within the group, [7] while later in her research career, she expanded her inquiry to include life history, epigenetics, endocrinology, and mating systems of both sexes. [7] Notably, her work has found links between longevity and social relationships within baboon groups, with cohesive group-living having benefits for surviving environmental stresses. [8] Her most recent work focuses on the social dimensions of aging [9] and how early-life adversity affects behavior, [10] body size and immune function [11]
Alberts has also served as an editor for numerous peer-reviewed journals in a variety of fields, including Behavioral Ecology (journal), the American Journal of Primatology, and PeerJ. [1] In addition, she serves as a referee for a variety of journals and grant-funding organizations, including the Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, PNAS, Behaviour, and the National Science Foundation. [1]
Awards include: [1]
Fellowships: [1]
Primatology is the scientific study of non-human primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos. Primatologists study both living and extinct primates in their natural habitats and in laboratories by conducting field studies and experiments in order to understand aspects of their evolution and behavior.
Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar is a British biological anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist, and specialist in primate behaviour. Dunbar is professor emeritus of evolutionary psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is best known for formulating Dunbar's number, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".
The yellow baboon is a baboon in the family of Old World monkeys. The species epithet means "dog-head" in Greek, due to the dog-like shape of the muzzle and head. Yellow baboons have slim bodies with long arms and legs along with yellowish-brown hair. They resemble the chacma baboon, but are somewhat smaller and with a less elongated muzzle. Their hairless faces are black, framed with white sideburns. Males can grow to about 84 cm, females to about 60 cm. They have long tails which grow to be nearly as long as their bodies. The average life span of the yellow baboon in the wild is roughly 15–20 years; some may live up to 30 years.
Social grooming is a behavior in which social animals, including humans, clean or maintain one another's bodies or appearances. A related term, allogrooming, indicates social grooming between members of the same species. Grooming is a major social activity and a means by which animals who live in close proximity may bond, reinforce social structures and family links, and build companionship. Social grooming is also used as a means of conflict resolution, maternal behavior, and reconciliation in some species. Mutual grooming typically describes the act of grooming between two individuals, often as a part of social grooming, pair bonding, or a precoital activity.
Robert Morris Sapolsky is an American academic, neuroscientist, and primatologist. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, and is a professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery. His research has focused on neuroendocrinology, particularly relating to stress. He is also a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.
Deborah M. Gordon is an American biologist best known for her impactful research in the behavioral ecology of ants and her studies on the operations of ant colonies without a central control. In addition to overseeing The Gordon Lab, she is currently a Professor of Biology at Stanford University.
The Amboseli Baboon Project is a long-term, individual-based research project on yellow baboons in the Amboseli basin of southern Kenya. Founded in 1971, it is one of the longest-running studies of a wild primate in the world. Research at the Amboseli Baboon Project centers on processes at the individual, group, and population levels, and in recent years has also included other aspects of baboon biology, such as genetics, hormones, nutrition, hybridization, parasitology, and relations with other species. The project is affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, the Department of Biology and the Evolutionary Anthropology Department at Duke University, the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, and the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Baboons are primates comprising the genus Papio, one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys, in the family Cercopithecidae. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma baboon. Each species is native to one of six areas of Africa and the hamadryas baboon is also native to part of the Arabian Peninsula. Baboons are among the largest non-hominoid primates and have existed for at least two million years.
Craig Packer is an American biologist, zoologist, and ecologist chiefly known for his research on lions in Serengeti National Park. He is the founder and director of both the Lion Research Center and Whole Village Project, as well as the co-founder of Savannahs Forever Tanzania. In addition, Packer has been a professor in the University of Minnesota's department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior since 1983. Since his graduation from Stanford University in 1972, Packer has become an active researcher and scientist, having published over 100 scientific articles and authored two books. For one of these books - Into Africa - Packer was awarded the John Burroughs Medal in 1995. He has received various honors and awards in recognition of his work as a biologist. Packer has been ordained with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1990, a Distinguished McKnight University Professorship in 1997, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic and the IUCN.
Sexual swelling, sexual skin, or anogenital tumescence refers to localized engorgement of the anus and vulva region of some female primates that vary in size over the course of the menstrual cycle. Thought to be an honest signal of fertility, male primates are attracted to these swellings; preferring, and competing for, females with the largest swellings.
Jeanne Altmann, born March 18, 1940, in New York City, is a professor emerita and Eugene Higgins Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology currently at Princeton University. She is known for her research on the social behaviour of baboons and her contributions to contemporary primate behavioural ecology. She is a founder and co-director of the Amboseli Baboon Research Project. Her paper in 1974 on the observational study of behaviour is a cornerstone for ecologists and has been cited more than 10,000 times. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society (2020)
Danielle N. Lee is an American assistant professor of biology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, best known for her science blogging and outreach efforts focused on increasing minority participation in STEM fields. Her research interests focus on the connections between ecology and evolution and its contribution to animal behavior. In 2017, Lee was selected as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. With this position Lee traveled to Tanzania to research the behavior and biology of landmine-sniffing African giant pouched rats.
Infanticide in non-human primates occurs when an individual kills its own or another individual's dependent young. Five hypotheses have been proposed to explain infanticide in non-human primates: exploitation, resource competition, parental manipulation, sexual selection, and social pathology.
Christine M. Drea is a researcher and professor of biology and ecology with a specialty in animal social behavior and sexual differentiation at Duke University, both primarily on hyenas and primates. Drea's work is focused on female dominant species and the hormonal activity, reproductive development, and social interactions of these animals. She is currently the Earl D. McLean Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology within the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and the director of graduate studies for the Duke University Ecology program.
Dorothy Leavitt Cheney was an American scientist who studied the social behavior, communication, and cognition of wild primates in their natural habitat. She was Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jenny Tung is an evolutionary anthropologist and geneticist. She is Director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a Visiting Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology at Duke University. In 2019, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2024, she was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Tung co-directs the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, a long-term study of wild baboons in Kenya.
Candice Lynn Odgers is a Canadian developmental and quantitative psychologist who studies how early adversity and exposure to poverty influences adolescent mental health. Her team has developed new approaches for studying health and development using mobile devices and online tools, with a focus on how digital tools and spaces can be improved to support children and adolescents. Odgers is currently a professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine and a research professor at Duke University. Odgers is also the co-director of the Child and Brain Development Program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
Susan E. Short is the Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor of Population Studies at Brown University who is known for her work on how gender, family, health and well-being are effected by social and political environments.
Regina Sullivan is an American developmental behavioral neuroscientist, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and senior research scientist in the Emotional Brain Institute at The Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.
Margaret Chatham Crofoot is an American anthropologist who is a professor at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. Her research considers the behavior and decision making of primates. She was appointed an Alexander von Humboldt Professor in 2019.
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