Rate My Professor Susan Alberts

Susan C. Alberts is the Robert F. Durden Distinguished Professor of Biology and Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University, where she serves as Dean of Natural Sciences since 2023 and was Chair of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology from 2016 to 2022. She received a B.A. in Biology from Reed College in 1983, an M.A. in Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Chicago in 1992. Following postdoctoral positions as an NIH National Research Service Award Fellow at the University of Chicago (1993-1994), Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1994-1997), and Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe College (1997-1998), she joined Duke University as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology in 1998. Promotions followed to Associate Professor in 2004 and Professor in 2009, with the Durden Distinguished Professorship appointed in 2015. She holds secondary appointments in the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke Population Research Institute, Program in Genetics and Genomics, and Program in Ecology.

The research in the Alberts Lab examines the evolution of social behavior in mammals, focusing on the social behavior, demography, life history, behavioral endocrinology, genetics, and physiology of wild baboons in the Amboseli ecosystem of Kenya through the long-term Amboseli Baboon Research Project, which she co-directs. Key findings address how social bonds, dominance rank, early adversity, and environmental factors influence reproduction, survival, health, aging, and intergenerational effects. Select publications include Silk et al., "Social bonds of female baboons enhance infant survival" (Science, 2003); Archie et al., "Life at the top: energetic and psychological stress in wild male primates" (Science, 2011); Bronikowski et al., "Aging in the natural world: comparative data reveal similar mortality patterns across primates" (Science, 2011); Colchero et al., "The emergence of longevous populations" (PNAS, 2016; Cozzarelli Prize winner); Tung et al., "Gut microbiome heritability is near-universal but environmentally contingent" (Science, 2021); and Campos et al., "Social bonds, social status, and survival in wild baboons: a tale of two sexes" (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2020). Alberts has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology (2023), election to the National Academy of Sciences (2019), Sewall Wright Award from the American Society of Naturalists (2021), Distinguished Primatologist Award from the American Society of Primatologists (2019), Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences (2017), election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014), and AAAS Fellowship (2012). She has served on editorial boards including Behavioral Ecology (2009-2014), Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (2003-2009), American Journal of Primatology (2000-2003), and PeerJ (2015-2017), and as Associate Director for Science at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (2010-2016).