Rate My Professor Ellen Ketterson

Ketterson's research examines the evolutionary ecology and behavior of birds, particularly dark-eyed juncos, investigating how hormones like testosterone influence phenotypic plasticity, life-history trade-offs, migration patterns such as differential migration, and adaptations to environmental changes including climate shifts and urbanization. She developed the experimental approach termed phenotypic engineering by manipulating hormone levels in free-living birds to study behavior, physiology, fitness, and gene expression. Key publications include Hormones and life histories: an integrative approach (The American Naturalist, 1992), Testosterone and avian life histories: effects of experimentally elevated testosterone on behavior and correlates of fitness in the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) (The American Naturalist, 1992), Adaptation, exaptation, and constraint: a hormonal perspective (The American Naturalist, 1999), and The evolution of differential bird migration (Current Ornithology, 1983). Her scholarship has garnered over 18,000 citations. Major awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship (2004), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014), Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Award from the Animal Behavior Society (2018), and Honorary Lifetime Membership in the American Society of Naturalists (2022).