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Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Sarah Hrdy (née Blaffer; born July 11, 1946) is an American anthropologist and primatologist who has made major contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. She is considered "a highly recognized pioneer in modernizing our understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both nonhuman and human primates". In 2013, Hrdy received a Lifetime Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.
Hrdy is a Professor Emerita of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She has also been an Associate at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. She has been selected as one of the 21 Leaders in Animal Behavior (2009). In acknowledgment of her achievements, Discover magazine recognized her in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Sarah Blaffer was born on July 11, 1946, in Dallas, Texas. She was a granddaughter of Sarah Campbell Blaffer and Robert Lee Blaffer, a co-founder of Humble Oil. She was raised in Houston and attended St. John's School before enrolling in St. Timothy's School in Stevenson, Maryland, graduating in 1964.
At age 18, Blaffer enrolled in her mother's alma mater, Wellesley College in Massachusetts. At the end of her sophomore year, she transferred to Radcliffe College, then the women's part of Harvard, in order to study under the great Mayanist Evon Vogt.
Majoring in anthropology there her undergraduate honors thesis was on the Maya demon H'ik'al published as her first book, The Black-man of Zinacantan, published in 1972. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated summa cum laude from Radcliffe in 1969 with a BA.
Interested in making public health films for people in developing countries, Hrdy took film-making courses at Stanford, but was disappointed with them. Instead she was inspired by a Stanford lecture of Paul Ehrlich's about overpopulation. His lecture reminded her of something a Harvard professor, Irven DeVore, had said about a species of Indian monkey called langurs among whom males, supposedly because they were crowded, killed infants.
Hrdy changed course in mid-year and entered Harvard as a graduate student in 1970 to study primate behavior so she could go to India and find out why these male Hanuman langurs were killing infants. She worked under the supervision of anthropology professor Irven DeVore and evolutionary biologist Robert L. Trivers and E. O. Wilson earning a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1975.
Sarah Blaffer met Daniel Hrdy at Harvard. He accompanied her on early visits to Mount Abu, and they married in 1972 in Kathmandu. They have three children: Katrinka (born 1977); Sasha (born 1982), a week before Hrdy was scheduled to present a paper at Cornell University; and Niko (born 1986). Sarah Blaffer Hrdy now lives with her husband in northern California, where they are engaged in walnut farming and habitat restoration at Citrona Farms.
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Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Sarah Hrdy (née Blaffer; born July 11, 1946) is an American anthropologist and primatologist who has made major contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. She is considered "a highly recognized pioneer in modernizing our understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both nonhuman and human primates". In 2013, Hrdy received a Lifetime Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.
Hrdy is a Professor Emerita of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She has also been an Associate at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. She has been selected as one of the 21 Leaders in Animal Behavior (2009). In acknowledgment of her achievements, Discover magazine recognized her in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Sarah Blaffer was born on July 11, 1946, in Dallas, Texas. She was a granddaughter of Sarah Campbell Blaffer and Robert Lee Blaffer, a co-founder of Humble Oil. She was raised in Houston and attended St. John's School before enrolling in St. Timothy's School in Stevenson, Maryland, graduating in 1964.
At age 18, Blaffer enrolled in her mother's alma mater, Wellesley College in Massachusetts. At the end of her sophomore year, she transferred to Radcliffe College, then the women's part of Harvard, in order to study under the great Mayanist Evon Vogt.
Majoring in anthropology there her undergraduate honors thesis was on the Maya demon H'ik'al published as her first book, The Black-man of Zinacantan, published in 1972. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated summa cum laude from Radcliffe in 1969 with a BA.
Interested in making public health films for people in developing countries, Hrdy took film-making courses at Stanford, but was disappointed with them. Instead she was inspired by a Stanford lecture of Paul Ehrlich's about overpopulation. His lecture reminded her of something a Harvard professor, Irven DeVore, had said about a species of Indian monkey called langurs among whom males, supposedly because they were crowded, killed infants.
Hrdy changed course in mid-year and entered Harvard as a graduate student in 1970 to study primate behavior so she could go to India and find out why these male Hanuman langurs were killing infants. She worked under the supervision of anthropology professor Irven DeVore and evolutionary biologist Robert L. Trivers and E. O. Wilson earning a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1975.
Sarah Blaffer met Daniel Hrdy at Harvard. He accompanied her on early visits to Mount Abu, and they married in 1972 in Kathmandu. They have three children: Katrinka (born 1977); Sasha (born 1982), a week before Hrdy was scheduled to present a paper at Cornell University; and Niko (born 1986). Sarah Blaffer Hrdy now lives with her husband in northern California, where they are engaged in walnut farming and habitat restoration at Citrona Farms.