Ellen D. Ketterson is a Distinguished Professor of Biology at Indiana University Bloomington, where she has served on the faculty in the Department of Biology since 1977 and was appointed Distinguished Professor in 2006. She earned an A.B. in Botany in 1966, an M.A. in Botany in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Zoology in 1974, all from Indiana University Bloomington, followed by a postdoctoral position at Washington State University from 1974 to 1975. Earlier in her career, she was an Assistant Professor at Bowling Green State University from 1975 to 1977. Ketterson served as founding director of the Environmental Resilience Institute from 2017 to 2019 and continues as science advisor; past co-director of the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior from 1990 to 2002; past president of the American Society of Naturalists in 2015; and holds affiliate faculty positions in Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Gender Studies. She leads the Ketterson Lab, focusing on evolutionary questions in natural bird populations.

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).

Professional Email: ketterso@iu.edu